The New Age
by The Winged Pyro That Drowned
Summary: Vex, brilliant Cybran, inventor, troublemaker, annoyer. ACU pilot? Almost. Join him and his friends as they go on a pretty big adventure through their last years of schooling before it's officially called training, and watch as their daily life and general time-wasting activities go haywire! Mostly OCs with some unit-designing, only slight changes to history. All is EPIC!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

**Disclaimer: Man, if I owned SupCom, that sequel would have never made it past development. Focusing on individual characters is for fiction, NOT REAL TIME STRATEGY GAMES!**

**As you can guess, I do not own SupCom. **

**Enjoy!**

**~Pyro**

-.-.-.-

_Initiating First Memory File V-1_

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Heads up Display…_

…

…

_Start daily scan check?_

_Y/N_

_Scan cancelled_

_Reminder: review factions for History Class_

_Reminder: review and proofread History Class Homework _

_Reminder: annoy Sarah to see if emotions play a part in any strategic moves_

_Reminder: war scheduled at noon in Virtual Reality (VR) Room eight_

_Reminder: must condense reminders_

_Reminder: upload extra Nanolathes to ACU_

_Uploading files to display:_

_C:\Core Memory\HUD\Lessons\History\Documents\Faction_Notes _

-.-.-.-

The United Earth Federation is the "core human" faction, representing the natural technological evolution of modern human technology. The UEF seek to unify the once great Empire that is now splintered. UEF military is more conventional-styled than the others, relying on "classic" weaponry like battle tanks and projectile weapons such as bullets and explosives.

The Cybrans are the second faction, humans enhanced with cybernetic implants and twined with a symbiotic AI. They are fighting for their independence, after many years of enslavement by the Earth Forces. Cybran units are often insect-like in appearance, and known for being extremely versatile: from assault bots which can repair other units to walking destroyers, a good Cybran Pilot can adapt quickly to every situation.

The Aeon Illuminate is the third faction. They are made up of humans that follow The Way, the philosophy of the Seraphim aliens found years ago before they were wiped out by Commander Smith-led xenophobic humans. Aeon units are generally more aesthetically oriented than their UEF and Cybran counterparts - as a result of this, they possess a sleek, alien, organic and seemingly innocent form in neutral mode - but when in attack mode, they open up, revealing their weapons and giving the enemy cause for alarm.

The Seraphim are an alien species that makes up the fourth and currently final faction. There is a debate going on about whether or not the outcasts can be considered a fifth faction. It is the species that the Aeon found on Seraphim II, and who taught them about The Way. Humanity thought it destroyed the race, but actually the colony on Seraphim II was comprised of exiles who believed they could follow The Way without sacrificing the ability to fight.

When the Black Sun was deployed by the UEF, it created a rift between the Seraphim realm and humanity's realm. An army of the Seraphim came through the rift to cleanse the galaxy of non-believers.

Because of their close connection to The Way, and the extreme empathic feelings that arise from that connection, the Seraphim are physically incapable of harming another sentient being. In order to wage war, the Seraphim utilize warriors that have agreed to permanently sever their connection to The Way. These Seraphim Warriors immediately become ruthless, emotionless, killing machines.

The Seraphim units are composed of some superior technologies and sleek designs, somewhat resembling the Aeon. Their units appear organic in design, like the Aeon, but possibly more alien and foreign.

-/-/-/-

Reference: Wikipedia – page last updated June 15th, Year 3856 (By Earth Clock).

Warning: Time of _page last updated _may not be an accurate measure when in other planetary time zones.

Time since page last updated: 14 hours.

Also note that this document contains slight alterations based on notes taken in class.

-.-.-.-

_Reminder: review and proofread History Class Homework _

_Uploading files to display:_

_C:\Core Memory\HUD\Lessons\History\Documents\Infinite_War- Homework_

-.-.-.-

The Infinite War raged for over a thousand years, with the UEF fighting to unite what "decent" humans were left, the Cybrans fighting for independence and freedom from UEF enslavement, and the Aeon fighting to cleanse the galaxy of those who didn't believe in The Way.

The War was nearing an end, every faction spread to breaking point, when the UEF unveiled a super-weapon. A cannon capable of destroying entire solar systems: Black Sun. Black Sun utilised the Quantum Gate Teleportation Network to amplify the power of the cannon to the point where it could destroy a number of enemy core planets in a matter of seconds.

However, when the cannon was finally activated, though it was unknown which faction had achieved control of it at the time, the firing of the Quantum Cannon created a soft spot in the fabric that separated the realm of humanity from the realm of the Seraphim. The beam from Black Sun never actually got anywhere – it dissolved into the Quantum Rift that opened up and allowed the Seraphim armies to pour through. Unknown to all, a traitor had been preparing the Seraphim for this encounter.

The factions had no choice but to evacuate from this new threat and the Earth was carpet bombed by strategic bombers so large that they could shade an entire city. Humanity appeared to be nearing extinction, and as a final desperate bid for survival, they forged an alliance against the Seraphim and the Order of the Illuminate, a separatist faction of Aeon Commanders who used the Seraphim as an excuse to destroy humanity and all who did not ally with the Seraphim.

After countless battles, and with heavy losses on both sides, the Alliance managed to destroy the traitor and take the fight back to Earth, waging one final battle to push the Seraphim back and end the threat to humanity. It succeeded, but only just.

Before Princess Burke of the Aeon sacrificed herself in unknown ways to close the Quantum Rift, the Seraphim had one last gift for humanity: more exiles. The outcasts were unaccepted in normal Seraphim society because of their weak connections to The Way, making them capable of being an ACU Pilot without needing to sever their connections, but still having empathic abilities. To the Seraphim, this made them criminal, unwanted. So they exiled them to a new realm via the Quantum Rift.

Since the traumatic events signalling the end of the Infinite War, a treaty had been signed: a treaty that would officialise the ending of the War. But, as the UEF had let their allies take the brunt of the damage from the war with the Seraphim and the Order, they assumed control for themselves; forcefully. The war may have ended, and there may be peace, but the discrimination of individuals based upon faction was never going to leave.

The training of new ACU Pilots and Commanders seemed to become a privilege only the UEF were allowed. All laws were created and dictated by the leaders of the UEF, and slowly but surely, the Cybran and Aeon citizens that had survived the war were being forced into stricter and stricter leashes. They could lead good lives, but under the eyes of their "superiors" they were still vagabonds and "highly likely to be criminal".

The Academy, location top-secret, is one of the last pure-science facilities that will let in anyone, no matter who they are. You might think that in this day and age there would be more places like it, dedicated to knowledge, but the factionism that is driving the newest generations of humans and aliens apart is just one reason pure-science is disappearing again.

The Infinite War only ended twelve years ago.

But many ask themselves…

Can the Infinite War ever truly be over?

-.-.-.-

_End of file_

_Retract HUD?_

_Y/N_

-.-.-.-

Well, looks like I've got my homework for History class done. I check the other reminders I've left on my HUD before shutting it down. Actually, I can't shut down my HUD; it's a part of me. It's vital, like my brain. So I just switch it to background mode, where it doesn't get in the way. Looks like another sunny day here at the Academy. I hop out of bed, running a quick system diagnostic while I dress.

I've got my favourite lucky Cybran zip-up hoodie, black with dark red stylised circuitry on it, and the standard ACU Pilots' armoured shirt on underneath. It goes perfectly with my black pants. Ever since mass fabrication became widely used, styles and brands didn't really seem to matter much anymore, since we could design them to whatever we wanted or needed. Looking in the mirror, I see my glowing dark red eyes, cold and calculating; stare back at me, the circuitry lining my skin like tattoos flashing quietly with activity in time with my thoughts. My short brown hair is sticking up as usual. I got a military cut once. I can't remember how long ago it was. Probably a few months. My HUD lets me know the results of my scan, completing my ritual of getting up every day for these last couple of years.

Everything is running fine, although a little bit of breakfast wouldn't hurt. I'll last. I check the time; almost 10:30 AM. Heading out to the lounge, I notice a strange quietness.

"Sarah!" I yell, looking about for my sister Cybran. Each flat here in the Academy comes with two bedrooms, a lounge, bathroom, and kitchen. Designed to hold up to four people, but the Academy didn't have an overflowing roll this year, so we got a bedroom each for once. Although I know who she'd much rather share a bed with… "Rick's waiting for us, remember?!" I yell, trying to figure out where she'd gone. The flat wasn't big, but Sarah was kinda quiet and sneaky.

"VEX!" _Crap_. Found her…

"C'mon, Sarah, it's you and Rick vs. me and 'Vadam," I say, heading to the bathroom. "Whoa, nice hair," I laugh, watching as Sarah tries to untangle the mountain of knots in her long grey-white hair. I lean on the doorframe, grinning madly. She's a bit shorter than me, but I've got a tall, skinny frame; she's a bit more solid. Her beautiful face is a little contorted in anger right now though.

"You bastard." She mutters, flinging the heavily abused comb at me. I catch it and start pulling out the crush of long grey hairs. Her hair is usually a mess, a long wavy floppy mess; but it's not usually this bad.

"I'm open," I say softly, closing my eyes and bringing up my HUD again. Every Cybran has cybernetic implants and is twined seamlessly with an AI, letting us connect to electronics with wireless capabilities easily, think faster and more accurately, and share experiences with one another in a way that only a Symbiont can understand.

One CyNet user is open for connection: Sarah. As we connect, I get hit by the always unfamiliar rush of someone else's memories. It's always weird though, seein- _living _it from another person's perspective. It's not just sights and sounds, its feelings, smells, emotions; almost physical.

"So that's what the back of my head looks like," I say, as I always do, when I connect with Sarah.

"Yep, messy and ugly!" Sarah says perkily, causing me to laugh.

"Not much better than yours right now,"

"Shut. Up." Sarah warns, and I decide to stop it. Despite our ability to consciously think while we're asleep, Sarah had opted for normal dreams last night, and she'd sorta woken me up. I went in to check on her, and… well…

She wasn't the most settled sleeper at the best of times… but she could move a _lot _when she started dreaming about her UEF boyfriend, Rick.

"So, have fun with Rick?" the door got slammed into my face and my nose started to bleed a little. "OK, OK," I apologize, "I went through puberty too!"

"Why you little-"

I'm already walking towards the door, closing down my HUD. I've pissed her off enough already. Reminder completed, I delete it from the list.

She can be a pretty good challenge on the battlefield once she's riled up. I'll connect with her afterwards; see if she was thinking something along the lines of "Screw logic! Steamroll him!"

The Academy is a big place, full of students from all factions and all corners of the galaxy. My teammate for today, Seth-Vadam, is a Seraphim outcast, shunned by his own people when the Infinite War ended. He's been welcomed here, but he does have to endure being studied, as well as studying. He owns his own Armoured Command Unit, just like me. I'm pretty sure him and I were supposed to be meeting with Rick at the ACU Garage before heading to the VR Room for our fight.

The halls in the Living Quarters section of this massive building are carpeted based on Faction: Red for the Cybrans, Blue for the United Earth Federation, better known as the UEF, Yellow for the Seraphim and Green for the Aeon. Floors that have multiple Factions within residence usually have a dark grey or black carpet. Sarah and I lived on one of the black floors, with Ariel next door to us. She's Aeon, orphaned during the Infinite War and shipped from system to system until she ended up here, with us.

I knock on her door, wondering if either of them is awake. Ariel and Merissa are both sixteen, and aren't eligible for ACU Pilot Training yet, but it wouldn't hurt for them to see some live action before they get thrown into the Pre-Training Studies.

"Who is it?" I hear Ariel's sweet little voice calling from the lounge of her flat. She may be sixteen, but she looks and acts more like she's eleven or twelve. Ever since space-exploration and colonisation kicked off, along with untold amounts of genetic engineering, there's no telling how long a person will last. Princess Burke lasted for a good two-hundred odd years, and she sacrificed herself at a time when she still looked around thirty years old.

Amazingly, I'm actually quite worried about how close I am to dying of old age. Despite being a clone myself, I'm eighteen; not just in age but also physically and in some ways mentally too. The only reason I'm worried is because my friends will probably outlive me. At least as a Cybran I still have the "brain in a jar" option my dad took.

"It's Vex," I answer, opening the door. "We've got a Virtual Reality Field Test in a couple of hours. You guys wanna come? We could use some Intel Operators," I smile, casually looking around her apartment. It's almost exactly the same as the one I share with Sarah, but with a distinctly more _Aeon _tone of décor.

Ariel is sitting at the desk in the lounge, reading through some textbooks on the early ACU. Wow, those guys didn't perfect the ACU until right at the end of the War.

"Hmm… hey Merissa, wanna see Bug-Man and Vex verse the Romantics?" she grinned, calling to her friend. Ariel's platinum silver hair and bright green eyes match her playful personality far too well. The way her shoulder-length hair clumps into spikes just makes the illusion of "Trouble-Maker" so much easier to believe. Despite knowing full well that Seth-Vadam was closer to a lizard than an insect, she insisted on calling him the Bug-Man. Maybe it's the mandibles.

"Why not? I still want to see the Seton's Clutch rematch though!" Merissa called from the bathroom, more than likely spending hours getting her makeup perfect. "Vex, when are you guys gonna bash Dumb and Dumber?" she asks.

"Probably as soon as they can find two more teammates. I'm not going on their side this time." I answer, leaning on the dining table.

"Awesome!" she yells, probably doing a little dance and messing up her hair.

"I gotta go set up my ACU for the fight," I excuse myself. "VR Room eight, noon." I tell Ariel. I'm just about to close the door behind me when I remember something. "Hey Merissa, you mind helping out Sarah? She's got a bit of a bad hair day going on," I smile. I wonder if Sarah will tell Merissa _how _she got her hair in such a mess.

"See you then!" Ariel calls, waving to me as I close the door behind me.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Second Memory File V-2_

-.-.-.-

"One down, two to go,"

"_Clkclkclk- aaarrrrcccc _why you mutter to yourself? I am here to talk," 'Vadam says, hanging upside down from the roof of the chest compartment in my ACU. He's wearing a dark grey hooded shirt, and some kind of skirted robe to hide his multi-jointed legs. Now that I think about it, it's probably his species day to day clothes and not special togas for priests or anything. He has yellow-orange skin, huge eyes, and mandibles like an oversized bug, but the texture of his skin and a lot of the things he does suggest he's a humanoid lizard. He doesn't have a tail, but he has clawed hands and various lumps of bone jutting out over his skin in places. My Seraphim friend had come from a low-gravity world, and it really showed with his skinny limbs.

"Just thinking aloud," I apologize. 'Vadam lent me the synthetic DNA Nanolathe patterns stored on his ACU's Engineering Suite. I had made a full copy and upgraded my own ACU's Proto-Crafter to be compatible with Seraphim build patterns. I already had slots open for Aeon and UEF Nanolathe patterns, but I suspected it might be a little harder to get those right now.

"Tell me, _clkhark, _what are you thinking?" 'Vadam asks, crawling along the ceiling like a giant grasshopper of doom. I have to remind myself he's more of a lizard, but I can't really be sure anymore, can I?

"My ACU can now build any Seraphim structure yours can, if all goes to plan."

"_Clkclkclk- _but isn't that cheating?!" 'Vadam exclaims, falling to the floor and grabbing me by the shoulders. I brush him off and smile.

"Well, if it doesn't work, we don't get any help. It's a 'if you can make it work here, then it's going to work out on the field, and if you can get an advantage, you better take it' sorta world, remember?"

"Yes, _clkhark, _but… can you do it to mine too?" he asks, his mandibles parting and his jaws opening slightly as he holds his head a little higher. I know it's a Seraphim's way of smiling… but it doesn't make it any less creepy. I was watching him last time we had a whole roast chicken for dinner. It wasn't just a massacre; it was a gory, messy, and exceedingly greasy massacre. It had taken a whole week to get the chicken fat stains off the walls.

"If mine can't build anything and we do the same to your ACU, you know we're going to fail miserably in the VR Room. If it works, however, I'm gonna upgrade all our friend's ACUs as well," I say, climbing up the ladder to the cranial Command Centre. "Deal?"

"_KAAARKKK! _I loves it!" 'Vadam cries, jumping up to the hatch. His powerful legs send him straight up and through without even needing to touch the ladder. Of course, once he's through, he hits his big head against the black metal roof. "Owww," he moans, rubbing his head. He quickly shakes it off though, with a few chitters and clacks from his sharp teeth and big mandibles.

"I would test it before the match, but you know how strict the UEF Law has gotten outside the Academy," I grimace, shrugging. The UEF are just OCD with their CFA. Stupid "Control Freak Attitude" of theirs.

'Vadam nods. Outside the Academy, anybody who isn't UEF gets treated like a lower life form, and the police officers that line the streets even have whistles that send out really painful programs to any nearby Cybrans.

"Hmm…" he mumbles the sound like he's gargling marbles. "Any way to test in the VR Room, _clkhark_?"

I'm pretty sure _clkhark _means _friend, _but I'll have to either sit in on one of Ariel's Seraphim Language classes or ask her. "Unfortunately not. I needed to book our match almost a week in advance," I answer, hooking myself into the command seat. "But I have an idea. Get your ACU ready in case mine fails," I say, buckling up the last strap and opening up the rear hatch for 'Vadam.

'Vadam laughs and shakes his head, "You are crazy, but I like your style," he says to me as he strides away to gear up his own ACU.

The Armoured Command Unit, known as the ACU, is the absolute pinnacle of war technology. The Quantum Gate networks could teleport armies anywhere at any time, but the costs of doing so were phenomenal. So, the Armoured Command Unit was designed: a war machine capable of creating and commanding entire armies at a moments notice. It was the perfect tool. A single Pilot in a massive bipedal walker. Gated in on their own, they could effectively and efficiently create the army that could have been Gated in but for a fraction of the cost. They would even have all the necessary facilities to produce reinforcements onsite.

Once 'Vadam gives me the signal for "all-clear", I switch to manual control. This is a relatively new feature for the ACU. The cannons and the Proto-Crafter detach from the arms and attach themselves to the thighs of the ACU, and hands appear. At this point, the pilot inside is gripped by the reactive control panels' manual handles and the ACU releases itself from the standard automatic idle state. We call it Mimic.

After edging out from my assigned holding bay, I stretch my arms out and watch the screen as my ACU mimics my movements in real-time.

"Tempest, how's your systems?" I ask, using one of 'Vadam's call-signs. The other one was "Arbiter". Sarah's call-signs were "Princess" and "Dream", while Rick was known as "Templar" and "Knight". Ariel's were "Star" and "Cobra", and I was known as "Glitch" or "Titan".

"Good to go, Glitch," he responds, giving me a thumbs up. I look at the screens from his face to what my ACU can see, and it shows his Seraphim ACU giving me thumbs up. When we're in our ACUs, it's all serious business. His English seems to improve dramatically…

"Ok, follow me and be careful. No leaping around or anything; your ACU may be the pinnacle of Military Tech, but I doubt it can attach itself to the roof," I say, smiling. Tempest nods, but tries a small hop anyway. His ACU gets both feet off the ground, but the resulting shockwave of it coming back down is enough to cause a small earthquake. Tool racks rattle and chains swing.

"Sorry, _clkhark, _I couldn't resist," Tempest says, holding his head down and accidentally catching one of those giant shoulder spikes in the roofing. He quickly stands up straight and looks a bit paler. "_Clkclkclk eraga manatoga maanikta vuha sageca,_" he says in rapid Seraphim, moving to a crouch.

"I don't think the designers of this place were ever expecting an ACU as tall as yours," I laugh, interfacing with my ACU's systems via my HUD. I can now see everything from my ACU's perspective directly, not needing the cameras. The huge door to the Garage opens up as I get closer and the bright sunlight from outside blinds me for a second before my eyes adjust.

"So, what is the plan being?" Tempest asks, crouching behind me so as not to get tangled in the roofing again. He almost crawls out behind me onto the Academy Campus, which has a couple of the students on the gangway laughing their heads off. I flick on the speaker system with a thought and point a giant robotic finger at them.

"You guys laugh now, but do you think you could do it?" I ask, scowling at them.

It's a couple of those factionist UEF bastards. One of them shakes his head and laughs some more while the other one holds his hands up in the "I'm unarmed" gesture and walks off.

I wave a hand far too closely to the remaining student, and he runs off. Scare tactics work, you know. And if you aren't in your own ACU, don't piss off the guy who is.

"Tempest, you see those T2 Air Staging Platforms over there?" I say, pointing to some sqaureish buildings on the other side of the Campus. Tempest nods, and starts to walk towards them. "Wait, man, I still haven't told you the plan,"

"Talk while we walk, then," he answers, striding towards the platforms. I follow him.

"I may need to upgrade the Engineering Suite for the Seraphim Nanolathe patterns, but the plan is to reclaim the Seraphim landing pad and build a new one. I need you here as backup because if I can't build a new one, then you'll have to before the UEF calls it sabotage." I explain, dodging some garden plots. Thankfully this side of the Campus is almost always empty. There are also a lot of ACU footprints in the ground. We often use this place for safely upgrading our machines for real (VR Room upgrades are only temporary, you see,), and to make sure they don't get rusty from lack of use.

"So if this works, you will be able to build any Seraphim thing without the need to capture a Seraphim Engineer… I like that idea, but won't people get suspicious of you? It's like planning a one man army that can be all armies, a _zerak-clk_. You realise the disadvantages of this idea?" Tempest asks, picking up his cannons and switching back to automatic.

I sigh. Yes, there are lots of things that could go wrong with this. If the wrong people knew, specifically Nick and Nate, the factionist UEF bozos we call Dumb and Dumber, then they'd probably use it against us. Whether it would be in the field of battle or the court, I don't know. The UEF leaders are quite factionist so I doubt it would be kept in the dark, even if it did secure them a tactical advantage. All they really wanted was an excuse to murder or enslave the last of us.

"Yeah, I do know. But hey, if we can't make any progress in technological evolution, then we're stuck fighting in the same way forever, always with the same strategies and counter-strategies. War would become predictable. We need to shake things up somehow, and I don't know any other way to do this." I tell him, switching my ACU back to automatic mode, but keeping my connection via HUD online.

"It's not just the ACU that can change the way war is fought," Tempest says, moving his ACU into position beside me, facing the Seraphim landing pad. "You need to upgrade the Engineering Suite, _clkhark_?"

I switch my ACU to view all available building options. There's everything up to T4 Cybran stuff, but no Seraphim. "I'm looking, but I don't know where the Seraphim build options are," I respond. It should be installed, but-

Wait.

The Engineering Suite.

"One second," I say, scrolling through the possible upgrades I can install onto my ACU. The Chest system already has Advanced Resource Generation, which is a pretty crap generator, and I've already got Cybran T3 Engineering Suite, and the Cannons have Advanced Cooling- hang on, why is the T3 Engineering Suite labelled as _Cybran_? "Tempest, check your upgrade screen for the T3 Engineering Suite. Is it labelled as 'Seraphim'?"

'Vadam quickly scrolls through the upgrades. Here at the Academy, a lot of the Tech students create upgrades for ACUs. They get tested in the VR Rooms before they get applied though, but of those that are successful, us ACU Pilots get them as viable upgrades. If you thought an ACU could be extremely versatile before the war with the Seraphim ended, then you haven't seen anything yet.

"There's heaps here, but the T3 suite isn't labelled as Seraphim. Just T3 Engineering Suite," Tempest answers, sounding confused.

"Stand by to assist," I say, scrolling through my available upgrades. There were some that could be installed without interfering with other upgrades, which was pretty handy. Let's see… there's Cybran T3 Suite, Advanced Build Speed… I'd heard that one could stall an economy faster than you could say "Uh-oh". Ah, found it. The "Seraphim T1 Engineering Suite".

"Ready to assist," Tempest tells me, readying his Proto-Crafter.

"I have to upgrade to get T1 Seraphim structures, and it's non-conflicting with Cybran T3 Suite," I tell him, starting the upgrade process. The Drones, those little machines that hover around with miniature Proto-Crafters, detach from their holdings on the jagged shoulders of my ACU, and float around me, their lasers focused on the main Proto-Crafter. Seth-Vadam's ACU turns to face mine and a glowing beam of particles accelerate towards me. They look like darker versions of the particles I see from the Aeon, like they suck in light instead of reflect it.

"Ten seconds to completion," my HUD tells me. As soon as it's done, I prepare my ACU for the T2 suite. It passes almost as quickly as the first upgrade.

"Did you get Advanced Build Speed?" I ask Tempest, thoroughly impressed.

"Of course, _clkhark,_" he says, "the Seraphim are capable of four extra levels of Resource Generators," he reminds me with a chuckle.

"I can almost imagine you with a Paragon hiding away in there," I retort, starting up the T3 upgrade. As always, the gap between T2 and T3 is much larger, and much more resource intensive. My mass reserves are almost depleted when it's over. An Aeon Paragon Experimental Resource Generator would be pretty helpful right now.

"Upgrade complete. Awaiting instructions." The HUD says, and I have a look around on my building screens. There's a new icon tray, filled with the Cybran and Seraphim icons only, below the build screen. There's an Aeon and UEF symbol, but they're shaded out.

"OK, we're good to go. No more assistance required; reclaiming Seraphim Air Staging platform now," I tell Tempest, tasking my ACU with the job ahead.

The Air Staging Platform structure gets weaker and weaker as I convert the mass on it for storage in my ACU's compartments, almost collapsing before I whisk away the last traces of matter.

'Vadam watches in what must be a mix of worry and wonder, as he changes his ACU back to Mimic before carefully surveying the area. One of the ACUs the school owns, for policing purposes, activates as the pilot starts yelling commands to the schools enforcers. When a student in an ACU appears to go rouge, they prefer to stop and disable them before asking questions. Pity all the ACU's are UEF; they don't even seem to have even grasped the concept of EMP stun weaponry yet.

"Trouble, right behind you, Glitch," Tempest warns me, swinging around to face the Guard. He manually reconnects his cannons and Proto-Crafter, pointing them cautiously at the Guard.

"Stand down, or risk expulsion and death!" the Guard yells at us through the comms system. He looks angry. I quickly search through the new building options available to me in my HUD. I can't understand what any of the names of these buildings are!

"Tempest, what's the Air Staging Platform called?"

"Just look for the big flat hexagon!" he cries in panic, not liking the ideas of expulsion from the Academy or death. He quickly builds up some blast walls across the field, keeping the Guard from getting any closer. I'm surprised he's done it in Mimic mode, but I hurry to find the building. My hands are slick with sweat and my brow furrowed in anxiety and concentration.

"Found it!" I yell, starting up the building process. I can't believe it, but it works! My Cybran ACU is crafting a Seraphim structure!

"That's tactical missile defence!" Tempest screams, reclaiming the building before I've even begun to start it. "I'll lay it down, you build it!" he yells, placing down a new landing platform for me.

"Sorry!" I yell, changing to Mimic in case the Guard decides to shoot at us. It's probably going to be useless to try and dodge a shot from point blank range, but it reassures me nonetheless.

"What are you two up to?! Stop at once!" the Guard barks at us through the intercom, unable to see us behind the tall, spiked blast walls. Judging from the look on his face, he's really pissed off.

"I'm sorry for any misunderstanding," I tell him, "but I was just getting you guys a new landing pad," I try, hoping the Guard buys my excuse. "It looked like it needed repair,"

"Then why did you need to take it down! This is VR Room stuff only!" the Guard starts shooting at the walls Tempest has built around us; his bulky ACU smashing them down surprisingly fast. He must have an Anti-Matter Cannon installed. Not surprising, though. He _is_ employed to stop people going rampant with one of the most feared pieces of equipment known to man and alien.

"We've got a match going later and that had to be booked a week in advance! This was the only way I could think to test this upgrade-"

"Fine. Take down these walls and I'll see you in the Headmaster's office in four hours. You had better be able to explain yourselves." The Guard growled, continuing to blast down the walls just as fast as Tempest could reclaim them. I'd barely finished the platform when the Guard shoved their ACU's face into mine.

"Of course, sir, we didn't want any trouble." I apologise, backing up before switching to automatic. The Guard isn't happy, but we're allowed to return back to the hanger in one piece.

"That was too close, _clkhark,_" 'Vadam says to me once we're out of our ACUs and rejoined on the gangways that line the Garage. "I still can't stop shaking," he says, holding his clawed hands out in front of him. Indeed, his hands are shaking, thumbs included.

"Yeah," I agree, rubbing my sweaty forehead. "It really makes me wonder… are we ready to face a life or death situation against a real Pilot?" I say, running my hand through my short brown hair. It's spiked up with natural hair gel, and now it clumps into spikes with my nervous sweat.

'Vadam shakes his head. "I suppose we just have to… oh, I don't know. What time is it?" he asks, looking around for a clock.

I check my HUD. "About ten minutes until we get into the VR Room," I tell him, walking towards the exit. "I can't wait to put UEF and Aeon Nanolathe patterns into my ACU; it'll be like a super ACU!"

'Vadam smiles. "I remember when you first beat me… I was surrounded by countless Monkeylords, a hundred Loyalists, endless gunships, and you were standing on top of the hill, telling me _there's no kill like overkill; _right before nuking me."

We walk down the long, wide hallways that line the Academy like tunnels in an ant-hill. "Good times, and good advice," I grin, looking around. Almost all of the walls on the outside of this gigantic building are glass, and we see more than a couple of groups talking about "The Cybran and the Alien in the courtyard". There are only two Seraphim with ACUs in the Garage, but a lot of people couldn't tell each of the three hundred Seraphim students apart even if they tried.

The VR Rooms are near the middle section of the floors dedicated to learning and studies. Each room has a specific map in which we wage war, and we were booked in for a 2vs2 war at the Burial Mounds. The VR Room scanned each participants' ACU for both hardware and software systems so that when the fight started, it would be like we were actually in our own ACU. The school had actually gotten a whole bunch of ACU heads donated to them by each faction in order to train us properly, in the kind of environment we would be in when we got to wage war for real. The VR Rooms were so good that if you kicked over a particularly sturdy enough tree while walking around, then the system would physically move the ACU head, so we'd feel the exact same thing we would of if we had actually kicked over a tree that really didn't want to die.

As we enter the elevator, I see our old friends, Dumb and Dumber. "C'mon, hurry up," I mutter, pressing the button embedded in the wall a few more times. Dumb and Dumber, stupid ACU jocks that think being UEF makes them better than everyone else. Twins, sport addicts, and some of the most factionist assholes out there. Nick and Nate just spot us as the doors close, and I sigh in relief as the elevator jerks into motion, sending me and 'Vadam rocketing skywards.

"I don't like them." 'Vadam states as we hit the right floor.

"Me neither. We still owe them for the Seton's Clutch Simulation," I remind him, beginning the small trip to the VR Room lobby.

"Vex! How ya been?" I feel a tough arm grab my shoulder and pull me close to Rick, jerking me off my intended path violently. "Skinnier the last time I saw ya, if that's even possible," he says, patting me on the back. Although he's got the build of a sporting legend, so it feels like he's pounding me with a sledgehammer.

"Rick, you have the keenest observations," I say, grinning evilly and backing away far enough that he couldn't continue trying to break my back. I consider it sabotage. "So how's Sarah been?"

Rick looks surprised, his military hair cut making him look a UEF at a war crimes trial. You know, those ones who "have no idea what you're talking about!" war crimes? "I thought you Cybrans knew everything about each other," he says, scratching his head with an arm that wouldn't look out of place in a gym advertisement. The armoured sky-blue shirt he's wearing just makes those oversized muscles stand out even more, contrasting with his dark-blue jeans.

"The key to that is letting the other in," I say, bowing. "And I don't think she was that happy last time I saw her. And you know; this is probably the fiftieth time I've had to tell you that constant connection often causes a lot of things you don't want. Like multiple personality disorder, overlapping memories, existence crisis, you know, loony bin stuff,"

"Ariel! _Ghatarkma, clesmaga manotoga maimthemwell?_" 'Vadam cries while picking up little Ariel and twirling around the small room with her, speaking in Seraphim.

"_Vu, nickta verminon, Genmarkma,_" Ariel replies, hugging him back.

"Umm, are those two dating?" I whisper to Rick, pointing at the mini-ballet going on.

"It's homework, Vex," Rick laughs, pounding me on the back again. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if you were the last one of us to find a lover," he says, shaking his head.

"Oh, really?" I retort, thinking about how I would nuke him to hell and back with missiles in a loveheart formation. Hang on; I think I understand what he means now-

"Yeah, really. You have the least amount of romantic know-how and anybody who could teach you isn't a Cybran. Face it; you're more at home with machines that you are with people." He tells me. I know it's true… but still…

"Yeah, I'll be inventing the latest thing stopping your honeymoon from being invaded by terrorists." I snort.

"Vex, you'd be the one crashing the party." Rick laughs, shaking his head some more. "I sincerely doubt you plan to leave me and Sarah alone together," Rick and Sarah are dating. They've attracted a lot of unwelcome attention from all the factionists out there, but they make a sorta lovely couple. You know; standard muscled dude and the brainy girl next door?

"Well, she is only seventeen. You and me, we're eighteen, legal," I say, "and have you seen what that girl dreams? You'd be begging for a gatecrasher!" I say, suppressing my smug grin.

"I heard that!" a rather pissed off voice yells from around the corner, causing Rick to startle, his piercing blue eyes widening in surprise. I stare at Rick, saving the image for later. If there's one thing I can turn back to for a laugh when I'm two thousand years old, it'll be the look he's wearing right now.

"Sorry, sis," I call back to her, giving Rick a wink and a thumbs up before being tackled by a really big bug and a little girl with glowing tattoos doing the ballet.

We hit the black carpeting with a thud and the other two leave me winded on the floor, getting up to start all over again. "Ouch," I choke out, coughing. Man, what did I do to deserve all this? Oh, right…

After getting up, avoiding the Blue Hulk, the Ballet Bug, and the Glowing Girl, I carefully tread my way to Sarah. I would say she looks ready to scream blue murder at me, but Cybrans aren't blue, and she's wearing a grey hoodie with the hood covering her face. I can see yellow light instead of the normal red coming from her facial circuitry.

"So," I start.

"YOU BASTARD!" she screams at me, and I have to duck a punch. And then sidestep another, before finally I grab her arms and hold her still. "Let go of me!" she yells, and I loosen my grip slightly.

"Promise to stop trying to kill me until we hit the VR?"

"No."

I let her go. "So did Merissa show up?" I ask, trying not to start a war… yet.

"Yeah, with a barrel of face paint," Sarah responds sarcastically, pulling down her hood. There, in amongst her bright red circuits, are curved scythes of the glowing white-green Aeon tattoos. "She was only going to help me if she got to do some tattoos. I told her that she could if they weren't permanent."

"And…" I prompt her, gesturing with a hand.

"They'll last a month."

I can't help it. I really shouldn't of, but I burst out laughing. I doubled over, trying to hold it in, but it didn't work. It was just too funny.

I got a black eye for my trouble.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Third Memory File V-3_

-.-.-.-

"Welcome to the Burial Mounds," Ariel says to me through the comms system. She's acting as HQ Intel Command for me and Seth. Merissa, who'd shown up almost ten minutes late, was acting as HQ for Rick and Sarah.

"This place reminds me of the graveyards we had back on Sera-Kryil Twelve. Are you sure there's nothing under here?" 'Vadam taps the plateau his ACU is standing on.

"Maybe a few billion digital ACU corpses, but other than that, no." I reply, assessing the situation.

I flick to the global channel, as does everyone else. "OK guys, are we clear on the match setup? I'm red, Rick's blue, Sarah's black, and Seth's yellow," I say, seeing everyone nod. "Intel Operators are Ariel for me and Seth, and Merissa for you two." More nods. "We're limited to two Experimental Units each our choice, no capture, no Aeon units, and Tech 2 units only," more nods. "Tech 3 buildings, Transports, and Engineers allowed, no Nukes or Tech 3 Artillery, and those Experimental Units get picked at the start, and fill up our Tech 4 build options." More nods. "Once we have an Experimental up and running, it disappears permanently from our build screen. Everyone pick your Experimental Units now,"

Seth chose a Seraphim _Ahwassa_ Bomber, and a Cybran Megalith Megabot.

Sarah chose a UEF Fatboy Mobile Firebase and a Monkeylord Spiderbot.

Rick chose a UEF Novax Satellite Center and a Scathis before he was reminded of the no Artillery rule. He decided on a Mavor before we reminded him again. Basically, to annoy everyone, he listed every Experimental he wasn't allowed before finally picking a Seraphim _Ythotha_ Assault Bot.

I was a little different. I'd said we could choose any Experimental we wanted… and I wanted a Fatboy. Oh and an _Ahwassa_ Bomber for good measure. It was about as close as I was going to get to a Nuke anyway.

"Are we allowed to re-choose our selections?" Sarah asks, a little worried that I'd chosen a Fatboy. She'd gotten to choose a Fatboy, so I don't see why she's complaining. Unless it was because once it was online I'd have access to three factions' worth of units?

"Nope, we're stuck with what we've got," Merissa says, playing around on her control panel. "Or, I can't change it without breaking something important," she grimaces.

Well now, looks like I've secured us an advantage in this take-no-prisoners war. I've got about five seconds to enjoy my choices before we begin.

"Good luck, boys," Sarah calls, waving a giant hand at us before walking away.

"May the explosions be forever in your way," I reply smugly.

"_COAGH!_" Seth screeches through the comms, causing a lot of us to cover our ears. By the way: when your ACU is in Mimic, that isn't a good idea.

"That means good luck," Ariel supplies quietly, teleporting everyone to their assigned LZ as I hack the system and make sure everybody's ACU is fully repaired.

As far as I know, I'm at the farthest south Landing Zone, and Seth is waiting at the north-east LZ. I take a moment to look at my surroundings. To the north-west is the river, and to the north-east is just more land. The huge river cuts diagonally across the operations area, and the land on the other side is a mirror image of our side.

"Arbiter, Star, how's our Intel looking?" I ask, setting up four Tech 2 Mass Extractors surrounded by Mass Storage so I can get the absolute most out of them. I'm going to need all the Mass I can get.

"Star is here and I need something to see so I can report to you…" Ariel rolls her eyes. "And I can't even think of what _your_ strategies are yet."

"Arbiter is here and working on air superiority. Currently pumping out Template Alpha-Air-Scout-T1. Star, they are ready and open for your command," 'Vadam says, handing over control to Ariel. The units immediately change their Friend-or-Foe tags to dark green, some of the reactive armour panels morphing appropriately. Merissa would have white units.

"Titan, gathering that info now," Ariel reports, sending out a small squad consisting of ten air scouts, fourteen bombers, and six interceptors.

"Good. Keep me posted," I order, pumping out a small cartel of Tech 1 Engineers and Tanks. "Arbiter, Trade-Squad heading your way. Let me know when they arrive."

"Acknowledged, _clkhark. _Starting to Tech 2," Arbiter responds. Jeez, four extra upgrades of Resource Generation and an Advanced Proto-Crafter really pay off. "I won't be sending a Trade-Squad," he warns.

"No need," I say, smiling.

"What did you do, Vex?" Star asks me, frowning. The screens above my main control board light up next to the faces of Ariel and Seth as Ariel's bombers take out a wandering Engineer.

"I've uploaded all the Seraphim Nanolathe patterns onto my ACU. Do you think Merissa would lend me her Nanolathe storage after the fight?" I ask, starting up what I hope is a Seraphim Land Factory while upgrading my Cybran factory to T3. It has eight T1 Engineers assisting it, so it should be good for now.

Uh-oh.

"Arbiter, got any spare mass you could send me? I'm about to stall!" I panic, realising I hadn't upgraded the Mass Extractors to T3 or built any more yet. Thankfully Seth chucks 300 units of mass my way, right at the last moment. "Thanks, I'm claiming new Extraction Points now," I say, using my connection to the ACU to do four more orders to my units at once. I start production of hovering Seraphim land units, and then kick off Extractor upgrading and am forced to use my ACU to start building Tech 3 Extractors further inland. Soon, with a couple of Tech 3 Power Generators online, my Economy stabilises and I can send some of my new hovering tanks to keep Princess occupied.

"Bad news, Titan," Star says, biting her lip. "Templar's hit Tech 2 and is pumping out shitloads of Tech 1 Bombers,"

"Arbiter, how's your sky fleet?"

"Bombing now. I'm hitting Princess's outlying Extraction Points. She's got hardly any Anti-Air," Arbiter observes, bringing up some shields, AA, walls, and other assorted defence systems. "Or TMD, for that matter," he says, building some Tech 2 Cybran Engineers for our spectacularly awesome Loa Missile Launchers to outsmart Princess's lack of Tactical Missile Defence.

I don't respond, waiting for some Intel from Star before I really start something. I've gotten a Tech 3 Naval Factory and a decently sized army to cross the river before Star speaks up.

"Small problem. You don't have any point defence at all, and Princess is coming at you with a shitload of Wagner amphibious tanks and a Monkeylord."

"Well, crap. How the hell did she get a Monkeylord up so fast?" I do a quick check of all the upgrades on my ACU. There's two Tech 3 Engineering Suites, Cybran and Seraphim, Advanced Weapon Cooling, and Advanced Resource Generator. "I have an idea… Arbiter, can you send over some building support? I'm gonna grab the Advanced Building upgrade."

Star gasps and Arbiter grins. "I was wondering how long it would take you to get it," he says. "I'll need to set up some _Zuthuthaam _first though. You have a Monkeylord and a pissed off sister after you, for goodness sake!"

I laugh. "I was wondering if she was going to try Steamroll me. Your right, I probably should have built some Artillery to deal with her. I've got a small army of mobile AA up and running, and I'll send over a squad of bombers and interceptors in a moment." I tell him, running a quick diagnostic on my economy.

Everything is in the green and full to capacity.

It's a pity I can't get a Paragon or something, but they're almost more risk than they're worth. Almost.

"Star, is that squad Arbiter gave you still online?"

"Affirmative. I've been running hell for Templar's parked Bomb-Squad."

"Titan, can you send any naval units? Princess is going all out with these subs, and I can't get anything in the water!" Arbiter says, bringing online some Torpedo Bombers.

"I'm gonna send in a transport loaded with Fire Beetles and crash it," I tell him, loading up the suicide bombers onto the transport with a thought. "If there's one thing she won't be expecting, it'll be a kamikaze Cybran. She's totally expecting the baby,"

Star dissolves into a fit of laughter, and can barely breathe after a minute. "You are _not _sending a baby to deal with her navy," she says, gasping.

"Glad you know you're a grown-up now," I say, handing over control of my kamikaze Fire Beetles. She relishes the chance to blow something up spectacularly, and I can't help but smile for my favourite diabolical little Aeon pyro.

Seth's transported Engineers, a mix of Cybran and Seraphim, build up defences around my base while I construct some Hive Engineering Stations to assist the Naval Factory as it starts to pump out Salem-class warships. The speed is almost alarming, but more than satisfactory.

The most epic thing about the Salem-class warships? They're amphibious. They can sprout legs and walk on land like mobile firebase defence. And considering that naval units are by far the most destructive of all for their Tech level, it is unbelievably effective at bombarding things while on the move, whether it be in land or water.

"Star, can I get an update on that Monkeylord?" I ask, bringing a few Salems inland to defend some outlying mass points.

"Not until you build some sonar, dumbass,"

Oops.

"Templar just took out my squad with Surface-to-Air-Missiles," Star reports as I amend my lack of sonar. Bloody SAMs. By now, almost every Engineer and factory I have is at Tech 3. The Monkeylord: a fearsome sight in optical range, and even worse on radar. The giant spiderbot not only has active stealth, but also a friggin' gigantic heavy laser generator on its back!

"Here, have some gunships," Arbiter grins, handing over a ton of _Vulthoo_. If there is one thing that guy is good at, it's an overload of Air Superiority. Almost five hundred _Vulthoo _make their way towards Templar's base, seeking revenge.

Star flicks to the global comms channel for a moment. "Eat this, smartass!" she screams at Templar, focusing all five hundred of the gunships on one target at a time. First she takes out the AA, and then pounds any factory she can get her guns trained on to the ground. "Maybe next time he'll think twice before messing with my scouts," she says, going back to our private channel. I can't help but agree. But I'm also worried that Templar already has SAMs up; Arbiter's army is almost nothing _but _air forces.

I order my small army of Salems to head out to the other side of the Burial Mounds, while setting up some Tech 2 defensive Artillery stations.

"Heads up!" Star yells, flagging the beachhead between me and Arbiter. "Monkeylord on the loose!"

"Dam," I mutter, quickly throwing up some Seraphim Tech 3 shields and Cerberus point defence. "Arbiter, get some mobile shields active, we need-"

"Seraphim don't _have _Tech 2mobile shields! Get that bloody Fatboy online!" he screams back as Star sets her gunships on the Monkeylord's tank escort.

I rush as much as possible, sending some recently constructed Salem-class warships to delay the Monkeylord. Sarah must be having a bad day, because the Monkeylord starts walking further inland, away from me and Arbiter.

"Fatboy online. Should I start up the _Ahwassa_?" I ask, setting up my factories to continuously pump out a carefully selected stream of units. The giant tank in front of me rolls itself to the cliff edge above my Naval Factories, and starts constructing some Tech 3 UEF Engineers for me. As soon as they're done, I order them to build some backup factories while the Fatboy chugs out Parashield Mobile Shield Generators as I send a Tech 3 Engineer UEF Trade-Squad to Arbiter.

"Trade-Squad is under your control now," I tell him, sending up some spy planes to Star, whose last _Vulthoo _have just been murdered brutally by Merissa's hoard of Interceptors.

"Thanks. Hey, are those Ravager T3 Point Defence really as good as I've heard they are?" he responds, engaging in some Naval Warfare with his hover tanks. He immediately begins his standard Fire-Base template manually, so he can store the UEF equivalent in his ACU's memory for later, which gives me a sudden thought.

"Those Ravagers are worth their weight in gold, and they weigh a lot. Do you think I could store a four-faction Fire-Base?" I ask, instructing my Renegade gunships to support the Gunther and _Zthuthaam _Tech 2 Artillery instillationsin keeping away the armies of Flapjacks and Vipers Templar has amassed at his shoreline to try and keep my Salem squads from coming through. Disappointingly for him, he forgot about the new Hoplite rocket bot, and that I had access to all the missile-hogs he did. Oh, and the Fatboy, which was quickly gaining high Veterancy with those huge battleship guns. The Fatboy's shield would barely last two hits when it came to missile exchanges, so I ordered a nearby Cybran Engineer to construct a small wall of Zapper TMD while the Fatboy kept the Parashields coming. "Prepare for your doom, Templar!" I yelled at him over the global channel, watching Arbiter's _Ahwassa_ fly over my head.

"You sneaky little-" Templar's message was cut off in a sudden burst of static. His units ceased to function for a few moments as the EMP effect of the _Ahwassa_'s gigantic energy bomb went off.

I laughed. This was going better than planned, and we didn't even _have_ a plan! "Star, sending you some air scouts. I need Intel on that Monkeylord and Templar's status."

"Coming right up. By the way, you might want to set up Omni," she reminded me in that innocent way that really grinds on my nerves because she _knows _it is far from innocent.

"Star, when you're out in the field with more than two squads of units to handle at a time, you'll forget some things too," I say through gritted teeth. Bloody Omni radar. It's up in a matter of seconds, thanks to the new Advanced Build Speed I've gotten. Remarkably, it is non-conflicting with the Engineering Suite upgrades.

"Yeah, like seeing the Monkeylord isn't as bad as _not _seeing it?"

Crap.

"Arbiter, Princess is flanking us with the Monkeylord!" I yell, panicking slightly when I realise that the rear of my base is literally virtually undefended with a goddamn _Monkeylord _behind it.

"Hey Titan, I heard you nuked my boyfriend," Princess says, thoroughly enjoying having a Monkeylord somewhere on our side of the river.

"I nuke everyone, sis, get over it." I say, rolling my eyes. Almost every person I've fought in the VR Rooms has been nuked by me at some time or another. Including Sarah.

"I'm firin' mah lay-zar!" she says in a far too happy voice. I switch to Mimic and look around.

"I don't see no laser," I report.

Princess is speechless for a whole minute.

"Where's my Monkeylord?"

"Scrap metal," Arbiter says, joining into the channel. "I still have an _Ahwassa_ up, you realise,"

Princess scowls at Arbiter through the video-comms. "Time to squash you," she says.

And now I realise why we haven't been attacked by them so much. They'd been storing up unimaginable amounts of gunships in the area just outside the Omni range and cloaked them with Deceivers!

I switch back to team-chat. "Star, what are our options?"

"Well, since you have about 30 seconds before those gunships are mobile… get everything you can underwater and set up a HARMS torpedo station perimeter. Then all you need to worry about is torpedo bombers. Arbiter, I suggest you try to bomb those gunships while they're parked, and do the same as Titan. Get everything underwater and anything that can get in the air moving; I'll co-ordinate the mobile shields and AA while you guys are under," Star responded, quickly sending what little gunships she had left to break up Princess's outlying Mass Extractors before suicide bombing them at Templar, who was still trying to recover from the first _Ahwassa_ blast. He'd had an _Ythotha _half online before the _Ahwassa_ had blasted it to hell and back.

"Titan, Templar's in the red! If we can get him now, we have a fair chance at taking him out before he can cause us any more grief!" Arbiter yells to me, sending his nearly broken _Ahwassa _on one final trip.

"Wait! We need that Experimental! Land it near my base, I'll try and repair it," I tell him, sending all my amphibious units underwater. My only other Experimental is another _Ahwassa_, and it'll be far more effective with two of them.

"Fine, but hurry. He's repairing his ACU!" Arbiter shouts, sending a twenty-strong hoard of _Vulthoo _and Stinger Gunships at Templar.

"Why haven't we been seeing any activity from Princess's base?" I ask Star, who is busy micromanaging my banks of Parashields, Banger AA Trucks and assorted Missile-Junkies.

"She's been a little preoccupied," Star responds, not elaborating.

"So we should be glad Merissa's on their side?"

"Yeah."

"Arbiter, the _Ahwassa _is repaired. Almost all of my Engineers are here with me, since they float. Send your bomber at the gunships first. If they get mobile, we're screwed. I'm going to go all out in constructing a rival air force and getting my own _Ahwassa _online. Templar's finished, but only if we aren't torn to shreds moments later," I tell 'Vadam, building a single Seraphim Air Factory and telling all the units I have with some way of assisting in building to get it going. A total of almost 80 Tech 3 Engineers are assisting one factory. Each Seraphim Fighter/Bomber takes a mere half-second to construct. It actually takes longer for the factory to start a new one than it does to get it built.

"Death to the- oh, _SHIT_!" Arbiter screams in horror as a billion gunships rise from the stealth fields of the Deceivers.

"Steamroll?" I ask, slightly defeated. The gunships are, of course, heading for me. I get the _Ahwassa's _build pattern online, just building it enough for the other Engineers to work from before scurrying into the murky depths of the river.

"T4 Strategic Bomber online." My HUD tells me, and I barely get it in the air before Princess's gunship swarm totally decimates my army of Engineers.

"Hey Princess, surprise!" I yell into the global channel as my Seraphim Fighter/Bombers come back from removing every little bit of AA and Factory in Templar's scorched base. Half the army suicides by crashing into the panicked gunships, but the rest shoot their way through. "Did you even think to bring any AA?" I ask her, shaking my head in disbelief. Almost too easy.

"Titan, she did." Star sighs.

"What?!"

A new threat that I've realised far too late; each of those Stinger gunships under Princess's control has a transport clamp, and those can hold Mobile Tech 2 Flak Artillery units. Ground-to-Air AA just got wings.

My fighters, my last hope, are blown up almost as fast as they took out the Stingers by ramming them.

"Arbiter. What have you got left?" I ask, constructing a wall of HARMS, cornering myself into this part of the river before bringing up as many floating SAMs as possible. Since I lack Support Commanders, or any land-bound amphibious builder, my towers are prematurely blown to little bits.

"An _Ahwassa, _a few bombers, a bunch of other junk… and my Megalith. Remember how you said that changing the ACU was the only way you knew to change the way war was fought? We could certainly use some more units and buildings," he tells me, sounding a bit defeated.

I sigh. New units would be cool, but-

Meh, screw homework, I'm going to be busy with designing a fully submerged Sub Factory. And maybe have a meat and gravy sandwich while I'm at it.

"Star, I'm blind down here. What'cha got for me?" I ask, plans for new units forming in my head when I probably should have been more concerned with the fact that there was another Fatboy in the water that wasn't mine.

"Well," Star says, "You're screwed until those gunships need to refuel, and until then, you have an Experimental or two working on running you over. As in a _Ythotha_ trampling. Also, you may want to take out the Novax Center before letting your _Ahwassa _park itself."

"Point taken," I say, sending the aforementioned _Ahwassa _on a bombing run over Templar's head. "Arbiter, send your _Ahwassa_ at Templar. Let's get rid of him and then blow Princess up!"

"Affirmative. Titan, I'm going to draw the gunships away from you. Make use of that Advanced Proto-Crafter and get some SAMs online before Princess realizes I'm faking. Star, I hand over control of this rather large… _mekago bazor _for Princess," Arbiter grins, doing that creepy thing with his mandibles again.

"What's a _mekago bazor_?" I ask, confused but building some AA.

"It means something that even I don't understand once you translate it, but I can sum it up as "Unreturnable Gift That May Cause Bodily Harm", or, if you want the specifics, it's a Tech 3 Transport over-loaded with Fire Beetles. Big Badda Boom," Star says; the absolute poster-child of explosive-loving people everywhere.

"Ha-hah," I laugh, clapping and shaking my head in wonder. "That's my girl," I smile, watching as the murky depths of the river a lit up with the explosion of fifteen _mekago bazor _detonating on a single target. I immediately notice the Fatboy, silhouette visible from the explosion, trundling towards me, sending out torpedoes. And then I see the really big piranha-like thing as I whap my ACU's head into as I dodge the first volley of explosives.

"I told you there was a Fatboy gunning for you!" Star yelled in her "I told you so" voice as the HARMS torpedo stations whirr into action. With a little bit of micromanaging, the HARMS only shoot four Kril Torpedoes, and I manually send the nanites inside to destroy the main electronic network of the Fatboy. Soon, Princess's Experimental is just a museum piece. All the internal networks are destroyed, and all the guns remain…

"Arbiter, I'm going to just test a quick theory here, but it might take a moment. Can you hold them off for a while?" I ask, thinking about what he'd said before, about new units.

"Templar is gone in 3… 2… 1…"

The river is lit up again by the death-nuke of Templar's ACU detonation, his core reactor collapsing. There's a slight muffled _whumph _and a shockwave as the explosion washes over my underwater workshop. Using some highly micromanaged nanites, I cut away the big warship cannons and attach them to my own still-functioning Fatboy. Then I remove the torpedo launchers. I think about putting them onto the Fatboy, but that's rather pointless, isn't it? I've got at least seventeen HARMS systems I could use! But now that Templar has been dealt with, I'm planning to bring the Fatboy topside anyway. No more torpedoes needed, but I could put on some AA, that's for sure.

"Going back under," Arbiter reports. "Got those SAMs up yet?"

"I should have enough. Princess left me my Salem Factory, as well,"

"Titan, send something at her already!" Star whines, having run out of units to play with. The Mobile AA and shield wall had already been destroyed, but she'd taken out a good deal of the gunship swarm. I seriously could not believe we'd missed that swarm until it had been too late.

"On it." I say, giving her control of a large amount of Salems. "Happy birthday!"

"OMG, thank you!" Star squeals, finally getting some land units. We don't know when her birthday really is, so we sorta have like twelve parties for her every year.

"Raiding party!" Arbiter, Star, and I all yell at once on the global channel. Princess's gunships have only just been finished off when I send my new Fatboy II, complete with four towers worth of Cybran SAMs on top, straight into the heart of her base.

"_Mekago bazor! Mekago bazor!_" Arbiter yells, flagging a rather new development in our way.

Twelve Monkeylords; waiting for us.

"What the hell?!" I yell, pulling my Fatboy II out of there before I lost my last link to UEF units.

"Umm, I layered down twelve or so constructs before I completed my first Monkeylord and lost the blueprint, so technically I'm not cheating, am I?" Princess asked innocently, looking up at me with her almost-perfected puppy eyes.

"Seth, nuke her."

"With pleasure," he replies coldly, as I give him my _Ahwassa_ Bomber. Before you know it, one of the Monkeylords is scrap metal, and half the base is nothing but wreckage.

Just as an epic war between Monkeylords, _Ahwassa_, and a Megalith started, I had an idea. Calling up my HUD connection to my ACU, I scanned my new Fatboy II and labelled the resulting wireframe schematic as "T2 Doom Tank". It wasn't constructible in any known factory, but it could be done straight from the ACU, which made me wonder if it would be possible to construct other units straight from my ACU.

Think later; blow up sister first.

"Star, you want a Doom Tank?" I ask, building up a U shaped wall of Hives, with just enough space to put a Doom Tank Nanolathe pattern in.

"What in the world is a Doom Tank?" she asks, confused.

"This." I say, handing over control of the first one ever constructed. I hear a small gasp, and then cackling laughter. "You are bloody unbelievable, you know that?" I tell her, setting up more Doom Tanks in the Hive wall.

"I want… MOAR!" she screeches in glee, tearing through Princess's defences with twice the firepower of a normal Fatboy, and I order my reserve Doom Tanks, about five in total, barely constructed, to start pumping out hoards of Flapjack missile trucks, Mongoose Gatling Bots, Pillar heavy tanks, and Parashields. I also set up a couple of Engineers to start building Klink Hammer Artillery Stations so I could bombard Princess even further into the ground.

"Now, have I levelled the playing field yet?" I ask in global, watching at Princess's unbelieving face. So? She got an army of Monkeylords, and I've got an army of improvised Doom Tanks.

"Not quite," a chirpy voice says. "I think you forgot about someone," Merissa smiles in a way that tells me she's got more than enough firepower to deal with my Doom Tanks.

"Unless you have a bazillion _Ahwassa_, I doubt it," I say, wondering what the heck she could be controlling.

"I don't want to give away my secrets-" Merissa starts before getting cut off by Star.

"Yes you do. You want to give away _everyone's _secrets," Star says, rolling her eyes and tearing another Monkeylord into oblivion.

"Mmmmmm… Yeah, you're right," Merissa sighs, chewing her lip. "I have about forty _Ythotha _Nanolathes hidden by Deceivers," she giggles. "Templar was awesome enough to hand over all the necessary building drones before he carked it,"

"Great… Arbiter, where are those _Ahwassa_?" I ask, setting up a UEF Air Factory to pump out Stingers and load them with Parashields. I don't know why, but I just feel like putting Parashields on them. Maybe they'll last longer.

"Shot down," Arbiter grimaces, shaking his head. "I have, however, received plans for a unit called the "T2 Doom Tank". I assume you messed around with the Fatboy?"

"Star, if you would be so kind," I nodded to her, grinning.

"Check this out, Bug Man," Star grins, handing over one of the many Doom Tanks I've supplied her with. Princess now has a full armament of _Ythotha _coming from her north to strengthen her defensive lines, which are being thoroughly blown to bits and being built back again.

"Impressive," he says, building some Parashields to defend him while he brings his trademark Fire-Bases online.

"Incoming!" Star screams at me, flagging an area just to the west of me. Pretty much where Templar's old base…

The sheer amount of _Ythotha _coming at me is enough to scare me shitless, but then my good old AI counterpart kicks me into action. I switch my ACU to Mimic, and start sprinting for the water. If there's one thing I know, it's that dam near all energy based weapons are useless underwater.

"Shit!" I yell, taking a leaping dive off one of the cliff edges and into the river, a huge energy blast turning that cliff into a crater. "Goddammit! Hey, does Merissa even have a call-sign yet?"

"I'm pretty sure it's "Barbie", but I could be wrong," Star shrugs. "You know, if I had some way to get Mass and Energy, I might be able to build an army using the Doom Tanks." She suggests.

"I'm a little busy trying to save my last link to the Doom Tank," I say, targeting the mass of _Ythotha _with my new shielded Stinger squadron. While they occupy the _Ythotha, _I send a couple of Doom Tanks and my original Experimental back to my side of the river. "Look, I'll donate you another Doom Tank and some resources so you can build an Engineer and set up an economy while I sort out Merissa's _Ythotha, _OK?"

"Fine by me," Star grins, ordering her army to simultaneously bombard Princess's inner Factories and the _Ythotha _that are desperately trying to follow me underwater.

"Titan, I know you're in a bad situation, but do you think you could help me?" Arbiter asks, sounding panicked. "My last Doom Tank just got annihilated by a Monkeylord and I don't have any backup Engineers! They all died by Bombers!"

I only have three Doom Tanks left, one of them being the Experimental Fatboy I modded. "I'll see what I can do. Star, how are my Artillery defences holding up?"

"Bombed to hell and back. We might actually lose this," Star says apprehensively, tilting her head.

"Arbiter, fall back. Retreat to our side of the river, and set up as many of the Defender templates as you can. Save some room on the higher ground for Artillery and Missile-Bots," I order, finally crossing the large river. Merissa's _Ythotha _aren't following, instead cornering in on the last of Princess's base. "While you set up defences, I'm going to kick start our economy, and swarm the area with Missile-Bots for shoreline firepower. Once we've got the shoreline secured, we should have enough of an economy to swarm Doom Tanks and every other useful unit you can think of. Sound good?"

"Those two are probably going to be able to counter it somehow, but for now, it sounds good. What should I do to hold off the ground forces?" Arbiter asks, pulling back. He self-destructs everything that Princess might be able to capture to gain Seraphim Tech, and then uses his backup force of _Vulthoo _to keep the _Ythotha _off his tail until he reaches safety. I forget to remind him about the no-capture rule before the self-destruct countdown ends.

"Hovering Seraphim tanks and Cybran amphibious tanks. That way you can tackle both Riptide and Wagner tanks," I suggest, going far inland. My shielded Stinger squadron is, unbelievably, still alive. And unharmed! "Star, take these Stingers. They're shielded, so they should last a while. I need you to scout inland and find out where all those _Ythotha _came from and if there's any more we should be worried about."

"On it," Star responds, kicking into action. She blasts a good amount of Factories and Mass Extractors on the way, leaving the smouldering wreckage behind with a guard in case Merissa or Princess decides to try getting them back.

"Titan, we need to pool our resources, or I'm never going to be able to pull this off," Arbiter tells me. He's getting bombarded by Princess's new air force, so I quickly set my team's resources to pool.

"Star, get some Engineers online and get him some backup!" I yell; constructing some SAMs as a small flight of bombers gets through. The EMP effect knocks out my systems for a moment, and I'm left in darkness.

And stay in darkness.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Fourth Memory File V-4_

-.-.-.-

"Star?" I call, getting worried. EMPs are never supposed to last this long. I open up my HUD, and it tells me my ACU is offline. All the lights and sounds I normally hear from the VR ACU head are gone. What the hell?

I check for available networks, seeing only the Academy Intranet. The usual hum of activity from cellphone networks are missing. I start unbuckling myself from the control chair, numerous possibilities running through my head at breakneck pace; some of them literally.

"Vex!" I hear a strong voice yell from somewhere behind me, muffled by the thick armour of the ACU head.

"I'm here! What happened?" I yell back, finally getting the last strap undone.

"The power's cut, and I don't think it was an accident!" the voice yells. I think it's Rick. He's the only guy I know who can bellow that loudly and care enough to check on me.

I stalk over to the rear exit hatch, and start twisting the giant wheel-lock. It takes a moment, but it finally gives and the door opens. I gasp when I see what its like outside. There's hardly any sunlight, as it's blocked out by the thick cloud of smoke that's covering the skies.

"Rick, what the hell is going on?!" I exclaim, climbing out of the VR. "This is insane! I got hit by an EMP in the VR just as the power cut,"

Rick doesn't look all that shaken, but then again he is the son of one of the UEF's top Military Generals. "The Headmaster thinks we may be under attack. Nobody has any idea who, or what their motives are, but we need to get out of here," he explains, moving to the HQ room where Ariel and Merissa would be, probably scared or annoyed.

"Gotcha," I say, moving around to the VR Seth would be in. I knock on the ACU's armoured plating as loudly as I can, and get a muffled reply.

"What was that?" I yell, straining to hear the response. I hear a large squawk and then a huge bang as 'Vadam kicks the door. Man, could he do some damage. There are a couple more thumps before the armour plating shoots away, and Seth falls out of the VR. "Dude, I highly recommend you avoid playing soccer," I say, quite seriously, before explaining what's going on.

The floor starts shaking and there's a giant roar in my ears, causing me to fall painfully to the ground as a huge Broadsword Gunship flies past the window. I can't believe how huge it is up close! It's like staring at a flying fortress… hang on, that's the CZAR.

"Seth, grab Sarah and let's get out of here," Rick shouts, running towards us with Ariel and Merissa following closely.

'Vadam lets out a stream of clicks, whistles, and grunts before trying to open up the door to Sarah's VR. He uses his claws to cut a few handholds into the metal before tearing it open. The ACU heads used in the VR Rooms are significantly weaker than a real ACU's armoured plating, and 'Vadam easily rips through the plating and electronics to get Sarah, who is unconscious in the Pilots Seat.

As soon as there's a doorway large enough for me to get in, I rush to get to Sarah. She's suffering from Overload; it's a rare occurrence of looping and repeated data feedback from HUD connections when there's a power surge right after a power cut. It can leave a Cybran with migraines for days after: if they survive.

"Are the elevators still working?" I call to the others, removing the straps holding Sarah in place. Her body hangs limply from the command center, her head flopping downwards. The near white hair keeps getting in my face as I struggle to hold her up and get the last straps undone.

"Power's out, we gotta stick to the standard Evac plan!" Rick yells, anxious to get out of here.

"Almost there…" I mutter, fiddling with the last clasp. Sarah's unconscious body falls ungracefully on top of me as the whole building shudders and starts to lean slightly. "What in gods name was _that_?!" I ask, dragging Sarah to the hole in the wall before handing her over to Seth. I try to be careful as I climb out of the hole, but the building groans and the floor seems to jump below me. A spike of jagged metal slices through my pants and cuts deeply into the side of my shin. I gasp as I feel the circuitry down there suddenly get cut off from the rest of me.

Rick hauls me through, and we head towards the stairwell as fast as possible. "Get to the Garage," I tell him, "and get everyone into their ACUs. If the Quantum Gate is still active, head there. Get anybody who hasn't got an ACU or an armoured way out of here into the chest storage compartments," I gasp in pain again as I trip over something. Rick grabs me and gets me back on my feet before I've even had a chance to fall, and I look out the window.

The smoke clears slightly, and I can see an army of bots on the plains outside the city. The Academy Guards are busy trying to fight them off, but from the looks of it, they're heavily outnumbered. And their ACUs were upgraded with quick submission of a small force in mind, rouge students, rather than fortified resistance of a substantially larger enemy force. They had little to no economy, and their best bet was to go Mimic and take long-range shots and find cover. They knew they were fighting a losing battle, but they needed to get the city evacuated as much as possible before giving up.

"Vex, no time for sight-seeing," Rick says, pushing me towards the stairwell. When I look down, I can see our friends and other students fighting to get out. Lots of panicking going on down there. Seth's carrying Sarah, whose visible circuitry is flashing unpredictably as her mind battles to get control of itself again. Her new Aeon tattoos are hidden by the way 'Vadam carries her, with her head nestled into his shoulder. His armpit probably smelled like fish.

As Rick and I start to climb down, there's an ungodly sound and the building shakes like an oversized baby rattle. The hallway that we'd just left got demolished by a badly guided Wasp ASF fighter, sending shrapnel and plane wreckage everywhere. We can't stop though. Stopping would mean dying.

I can barely think straight, my leg hurts that much. I can still wriggle my foot, though it hurts like hell and feels unnatural, like it isn't my foot. Time to worry about that later: escape first.

"AFK," I tell Rick, who nods and grabs my shoulders. AFK, "Away From Keyboard" is used when people were chatting on the school network and had to go away for a moment; usually for a bathroom trip or snacks. When a Cybran went AFK like this, it meant I was letting my AI side take over while my mind retreated. My AI side wouldn't communicate, but simply put my body on autopilot and would let the organic me know when something important was happening. Something _I _would need to be there for.

Now gracefully oblivious to the world around me, I could do some thinking without being distracted. Rick would have to guide my body in the right general direction, but I wasn't currently needed there.

Who would attack us?

Why?

Would they have unofficial higher-ups backing them?

How many were there?

There was a lot to think on. Who? From what I'd seen out the window, it could have been either a UEF or Aeon gone rouge, although the UEF is the only faction I could think of that might have something against the Academy. Why? If it was a UEF, then I'd say it was because of the Cybrans and Aeon who got free will around here. Well, you know; free will within the school boundaries. A lot of factionists resented that.

The Academy was considered a "pure science" facility; they only let us research and conduct science on what we wanted to, which produced much better results than someone who would have just been paid to research something. That was extremely good, but a lot of people didn't like the fact that there were Cybrans and Aeon living here.

"Vex! Wake up!" Rick yelled to me, and my AI flags it into my consciousness. It takes a moment for me to fully reintegrate with my body, brining a wave of dizziness.

"I'm back." I tell him, shaking my head to clear my senses. We're in the ACU Garage, along with everyone who couldn't make it to an evacuation tank- I mean transport. Everyone who owns one of the ACUs living in the Garage is also here with us, and everyone seems to be looking to me… "What's happening?" I whisper to Rick, slightly annoyed.

"I told everyone to get in here because it's fortified, and you'd have a plan to get us out," he says quickly, wincing as another plane flies into the building above us.

"OK, everyone! Listen up! Step forward if you're a Pilot, and come over here," I point to Rick, who shuffles back a few steps. "If you have an ACU but can't pilot it, come over here to me, and hurry up!" I yell, trying to get people moving. A few Pilots that I know go over to Rick, and a few of the crowd pick their way over to me.

Merissa, Seth-Vadam, Jones, Maxine, and Andrew make their way to me, 'Vadam still carrying Sarah. Those are the ones I know who own an ACU. The rest I don't have time to identify.

"Rick, how many of yours have an ACU?" I yell to him, and the ACU owners raise their hands. "You guys, get into your ACUs and empty the rear chest storage – load as many people as you can in there, doesn't matter which faction, OK? We need to get everyone out of here and if I see any factionism going on in this Evac, I'm going to rip your damn head off myself. Am I clear?" I ask, glaring at Nick and Nate in particular. They scowl, but nod. "Good. Now get moving! You lot," I point at the remaining Pilots without ACUs, "Get over here," I order, feeling another shockwave running through the floor. The loudest thing any of us have ever heard roars all around us. The top of the Academy is falling down. This only sends all the rest of the civilians into a panic.

"HEY! SHUT UP AND LISTEN!" Rick bellows, getting everyone to freeze for a moment. He nods to the Pilots, and they rush away to get into their ACUs while Rick addresses the crowd. "Find an ACU with open compartment doors, and get the hell in there! This is our last chance Evac! Any factionism from Pilots or Evacuees means you get left behind! Now MOVE!" he roars, and everybody starts moving again, but in a slightly more ordered manner.

I bring my attention back to the Pilots around me. "OK, everyone who can't drive their ACU, these guys are going to pilot for you. You'll be in the control center alongside them, but remember to let them do the piloting. If you know any of these Pilots," I'm too busy to take notice of who's who anymore, so I'm just going to let them do it. "Then drag them to your ACU. Pilots, don't disrespect them or their machines; our lives depend on this. Seth, you're with me. Bring Sarah and Ora-Diel," I order, pushing the others along. Ora-Diel is another Seraphim, and she's been doing a lot of ACU training.

The emergency generators, AKA our ACUs, are still up and running so I access the comms system via my HUD and broadcast a message to all pilots. "Use channel code "Zeta-Evac-Twelve" for all relevant broadcasts and tactical information. I'm not going to leave anybody behind, so make sure you all listen out when I broadcast. Failure to do so will probably result in death, likely from whoever's attacking us." I say, cutting off my connection before I could get any response.

"_Clkhark_, what about Sarah's ACU?" 'Vadam asks me, holding Sarah up a little higher. She's still suffering from Overload, and her circuitry is positively dancing with activity. That's a problem… they should be going inert right about now, but I can't deal with it without letting everyone I'm trying to evacuate die. Ora-Diel is already in Seth-Vadam's ACU and is opening up the bays.

I'm almost ready to leave her ACU behind, but then I spot one particular Cybran who can't quite find where he should be. Dammit. I'll need someone in Sarah's ACU with the Pilot, but I need someone with Sarah while I'm stuck in the Pilots seat. "Jake, over here," I call, limping towards the bays where Sarah and I have our ACUs parked. "Seth, you go with him. He's going to have to pilot Sarah's ACU," I say, and they both nod. I know Jake's a little rusty on the piloting, so I tell him to just make sure it moves.

"Guys, remember to hold fire," I broadcast to the Evac channel, before putting out a broadcast on the speaker system. All the current ACUs are loaded up, some to beyond capacity. "Everyone still on foot, two more ACUs are available for load-up, go to holding bay F5," I order.

"You'll be OK on your own?" 'Vadam asks, still holding Sarah.

"I'm going to have to take Sarah in mine," I say, a little apologetically. "Jake, start up Sarah's ACU and get the hatches open. Seth'll join you in a minute," I say. He nods and runs off.

"Vex!" Ariel cries, running over to me from the last of the crowd making their way to the last ACUs as more tremors run through the building. It must be chaos out there. I'm glad to see Ariel though.

"Seth, I'll open up the doors for you. Leave Sarah in the control room, and head over to Jake," I tell him. Ariel looks worried. "Ariel, you're with me," I grab her hand and limp over to the ACU control room. Climbing up the stairs is a lot harder now that I'm off AFK. It hurts like hell, too.

"Vex, are you sure about this?" Ariel asks. Her bright green eyes are open wide, flicking to everyone's faces and back again as I open up the storage bay doors. It's going to be a tight fit, but we should be able to get everyone in.

"Of course I'm not," I say, and it seems to startle her.

"What do you mean your not sure?!" she shrieks, and I quickly hug her close.

"I mean that I have no idea what's going on at all. The best thing I can do right now is get these people as far away from the action as possible. As soon as we're outside-" another earth-shaking explosion rattles the Garage, chunks of debris falling from the ceiling. "Get in!" I yell, pushing her into the ACU hatch just before leaping away from a particularly large chunk of lethal concrete. It smashes through the floor and bounces heavily onto the next one. I do my best to climb into the ACU hatch with a useless leg and a sloping floor, watching the chaos around us.

"Vex, is she supposed to be doing this?" Ariel asks me as I strap myself into the Pilots seat. Sarah's propped up against the rear wall of the Command Center, and Ariel has taken the initiative to watch over her.

"No, she's not. I need you to keep an eye on her, and tell me how she's doing mentally. Don't ask how, just look at her circuitry. Tell me if there's any distinct change in the lights," I tell her, hoping she knows what I mean.

"Distinct?"

"Trust me, you'll know. If your head starts to hurt, focus on something else, but keep those lights in your vision," I say. The girls are positioned behind me, so I can focus on the Evac situation.

"Broadcast, broadcast," I test; making sure my ACU is in the right channel. "Everyone, sound off. Just give me faction, and let me know if you have an Area Shield upgrade, Surface-To-Air Missile Systems, or Build Spec upgrades." I order, flicking through my available ACUs. As each Pilot sounds off, I set up a screen to track each one. Two Seraphim ACUs, and about twenty put together from the other factions. Four of those are UEF, and have area shields. "Form up into four groups, as even as possible, make sure your all under a shield, and let's get moving. To all passengers, get ready for a bumpy ride. All units hold fire until I can get Friend-or-Foe tags up."

It's a sight to behold, twenty three ACUs, all with various upgrades to their hardware, from all the factions, walking out of the Garage in one big stream. I take a moment to check which ACUs are equipped with SAMs and distribute them between the four groups. All Guards are deployed, so there's no-one to stop us. Pretty sure they wouldn't be able to anyway.

"Broadcast, broadcast," I say in the Guard's personal channel. "Is there anybody out there? Please respond, over."

"You again?" one Guard asks over the comms, astounded that I'm still alive. "Well, good thing we have more ACUs out there-"

"Sorry, can't help fighting," I say, directing the groups to go through the streets that appear to be the least bombarded to get the Quantum Gates at the heart of the city. "Strictly Evac. All the transports were full and left before half the Academy could get out, so we've got about twenty three ACUs loaded beyond capacity with civilians. We're heading to the Gates. Can you supply radar feed? We need some Friend-or-Foe tags before we get moving. Who are our allies and who do we need to shoot down?"

"Bloody UEF renegades," the Guard says, tired. He's been doing a good job so far. "I believe you Cybrans know all about the factionism issues?"

"Only far too well." I respond, watching my orbital view of the area. "What are the tags?"

"City defences are orange, Guard forces are blue. Civilians are grey. The enemy seems to be multiple tags, but we can pin all hostile forces as green. You lot happy as red?" the Guard tells me. I broadcast the information and radar screenings to the rest of the Evac Pilots, as well as update their tag spotters.

"Fine by me, and I'm currently in charge of the Evacuee ACUs, so the others won't complain. Don't know why they would at a time like this, anyway… sorry. Did any of the Evac transports make it out?" I ask. The Guard suddenly looks like he's gone from middle-aged to old in a matter of seconds.

"War crimes," he says, looking away for a moment before being forced to start commanding what little forces he has left fanatically. "The Gates have been destroyed and that section of the city is mostly rubble. We can't win this, and we can't evacuate anyone any more. I'd love to help, but I'm seriously wondering how we're going to do this."

I think for a moment. Dad's probably going to be extremely pissed off, but we need somewhere safe to go where we know we can regroup and organise a fortified resistance.

"I have an idea, but you guys will need to knock out the Quantum Gateway restriction satellites," I tell him, redirecting the group back away from the city centre. There's a few complaints over the Evac channel but I quickly remind them I'm the only one who currently knows where's relatively less violent.

"I could do that," the Guard says, slowly nodding. "What's your plan?"

"Send scouts over the Western Plains." I order, "Don't argue with me. I know you're higher rank, blah blah blah, but right now I don't care and neither should you. I've gotta get this ACU hoard under control, so let me know what you see." I tell him, completely serious.

"Vex, Sarah's lights are getting worse," Ariel says worriedly. "They're getting brighter and faster,"

"Shit." I curse under my breath, switching to Evac channel. "Guys, we're going to be heading near the front lines. There's a lot of Tech 3 running about on both sides, so builders get behind and combatants up front. Stay behind the bloody shield wall – you wouldn't last a second outside it," I order everyone, and of course, Nick and Nate are the ones who object the most.

"Why should we be taking orders from a Chiphead?" Nick asks, his eyes narrowing. "For all we know, you're the one leading us to our deaths!"

"THE GOD DAMN UEF ARE ATTACKING!" I shout at him, bashing a fist down on the control panel. "You either follow orders, or you relieve command of your ACU to someone who will. I'm not going to tolerate anybody risking the lives of a couple hundred people just because you can't see shit." I say, gritting my teeth.

"You might of-" Nate starts before being cut off by Rick.

"If you aren't following orders, you're endangering the rest of us." he says, going to Mimic and pointing his Anti-Matter Cannon at Nate's head. "Any more questions?"

There were none.

"Great teamwork guys; really appreciate it," I say, praising the others. Most of them are scolding Nick and Nate, but I ask them to stop. Better to wait until everyone's safe and alive first.

"Scout was shot down by Air Superiority Fighters," the Guard reports, watching the north walls of the city. "But there was nothing else there, and those ASF had followed it all the way from the eastern walls. Whatever your planning, you'd better hurry." He says, raising an eyebrow when I lead the rest of the Evac group out the gates. At least now I know there's decreased risk of flanking.

"We've got some backup for you!" I say, directing the Combat Pilots to get to the shield wall and hold off the latest wave of enemy units. "Ora, Seth's ACU has some unbelievably fast building capability. Get us a couple of _Ythotha _and some _Ahwassa _patterns up for the rest of the builders. We need to give the Guards some reinforcements! Everyone who has their ACU outfitted for max build capability, get to work on those Nanolathes. Four ACUs per Nanolathe, the rest of you, build some factories or Experimentals," I yell to the Evac group.

"Well, this is a surprise. I thought you said "Strictly Evac"?" The Guard says, looking kind of flustered.

"Sir, I do believe you'll need the help." I say to the Guard, who can't really believe the sudden amount of help he's getting. "Now, how are the defences of the city holding up, and can we get everyone who's still out there here?" I ask, using my new Seraphim Nanolathe patterns to throw up what I now recognise as Tech 3 shield instillations.

"The defences are doing terribly, and this place is currently the most assaulted spot, but the only one even remotely defendable," the Guard says, still watching the force I have under my command throw up those very defences.

"Good." I say, nodding. "Guys, we need some Tech 2 Artillery online for the larger assaults," I order, flicking through the status of all the Combat ACUs. "Nate, pull back. You too, Jones. Actually, all Combat Pilots pull back. You guys are getting far too cocky," I tell them. "Come in for repairs. Don't forget that if even one of you guys gets taken down, you'll be taking the rest of us with you. No heroics!"

"Vex," Rick says, getting my attention. "What's the plan?"

"Defend this place while I get a Gate online. It might take a while to get the codes I need, so don't let anything through." I order, thinking. I didn't feel like this when I was confronted by the Guard: I felt scared. Now, though, I feel like I'm totally in control. No uncertain enemies; only defined Intel.

"Sir, can you order everyone and everything that's going to be evacuated into this spot?" I ask the Guard, flagging a clear spot just behind our shield wall. More shields are going up around it as I speak.

"Yes, but are you sure you can get everyone out?" the Guard asks, clearly concerned.

"No," I respond, "But if this doesn't work, it's not like anybody's going to live through this anyway."

"Good point."

The battle rages on around us as I select a couple of Cybran ACUs to help me get the Quantum Gate online. While my ACU is automatically building, I check on Ariel and Sarah. "How is she?" I ask quietly, turning in my seat to try and face them, but failing.

"The lights are flashing slower now," Ariel whispers, almost crying, "But they're brighter each time. Is she dying?"

I sigh. There's no easy way to put this, and I've only ever been able to tell her like it is. "Possibly. If Overload gets bad enough without proper treatment soon after the event, it can erase a Cybran's memories, personality, and even their brain. The AI they've been twined with can also be erased; overwritten. If she ever wakes up, she might not even be Sarah anymore. Heck, if it gets that bad, the most basic brain functions get damaged and they die anyway," I close my eyes, leaning my head back. "It's truly the worst way to go. Drowning, suffocation, beheading… sure, that's bad; but Overload… I've heard it's close to being awake while your soul is washed away, bit by bit."

"We can save her, right?" Ariel asks, and I hear shuffling. "You could connect to her and-"

"It doesn't work like that. She needs to physically connect to an external hard drive, and offload the event. Last time a Cybran tried to save another suffering from Overload, the problem simply spread. Overload is like the plague, only far more isolated and twice as dangerous. I'm sorry." I say, hanging my head in defeat, or shame. Possibly both. "I need to talk to dad, and this is probably going to be a risky move, so please don't let him know you're here," I ask, feeling terrible about it.

Once the Gate is finished, I connect to its Quantum broadcasting signals via my HUD and stretch out to the Cybran Network, CyNet. I locate Dr. Brackman's signal and request chat. He knows who I am and immediately accepts without question.

"My boy, what's going on?" Brackman asks, his brain flashing with every word through a video feed I uploaded to one of my many command screens.

"Dad, sorry about this, but I need the Gate codes for us to get to the Panacea. The Academy was attacked by some UEF factionist rebels, and we need to get everyone to somewhere safe before they start to pull out the Nukes."

"I've heard about some of your fellow students, oh yes. Are you sure about this?" he asks, concerned. This isn't quite how I was expecting him to react, but then again he has had about a thousand or so more year's worth of diplomatic experience than me.

"If I had anywhere else to go, I would, but you know how riled up the UEF is at us. If we went anywhere else, they'd view us as hostile anyway." I say, hearing another wave of enemy units pummel our battered defences.

"Fine, but I'm warning you, if anyone starts acting up, I won't hesitate to throw them out the airlock," Brackman says to me, feeding the codes into my ACU.

"Thanks, dad; I'll try not to let you down," I say, swapping over to Evac channel. "OK everyone, listen up! The gate's almost ready for transport. The receiving end is going to be paying the energy costs, but make sure you go in one ACU or unit at a time!" I yell, uploading the codes into the gate. "Let's move, people! Turn all weapons to hold fire before you go into the portal, or you'll regret it. I've got us a safe landing spot, but the locals are on a hairline trigger, got it?" everyone listens. Thank god they do.

"OK, civilians first, ACUs last," the Guard orders, sending a couple of his shiny new _Ahwassa _over what we suspect to be the enemy base. There's a massive explosion as the energy bombs detonate. I feel a little annoyed at the fact that I wasn't able to directly contribute anything to the battle.

As the last of my Evac ACU group enters the portal, I look back to the city. It's in ruins, smoke blocking out the rest. "You first," I tell the Guard. "I'm going to set it to a self destruct timer so they can't follow us,"

"Good idea. You know-"

"Save it for later," I say, nodding towards the Gate. "Hurry up and move it, will ya?"

The Guard smiles and shakes his head, but moves through the portal. I rig a timer to a nearby T3 power generator, setting it to explode in one minute. It'll take the Gate out with it, along with the rest of the base. Chain-reactions: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

_Strategic Launch Detected_

And… now I don't even need to bother with a timer.

"Ariel, we're going to get Sarah some help," I reassure her, stepping into the portal.

There's a huge flash, a moment of nausea and weightlessness, and then I find myself back on solid ground. The gravity of this place is slightly lower, and the ACU cushions the impact nicely. I quickly move forward through the crowd of ACUs, heading towards one of the docking bays. As my ACU docks in, I open up the doors on the storage hold and the control room.

"Everyone, find a dock. I know a lot of you aren't probably going to like this, but for now, we are guests on Dr. Brackman's new flagship, the Panacea. This is a purely Cybran vessel, so please comply with anything asked of you. Make your way to the mess halls and wait for further instructions. Thank you," I say my final broadcast over the Evac channel, before connecting to the massive ships systems and requesting some help for Sarah. Every Cybran knows how bad Overload is, and specifically trained medics are rushing for her, responding instantly.

As the other massive machines start filing away into the docks, the Guard's ACU remains in the middle of the bay. It simply sits there, the Guard probably talking with dad for a while, before finally moving to a separate set of docks where the Cybran ACUs are stored.

"Vex," Ariel says, gasping. "Your leg!"

I look down at it. There's a pool of blood in my shoe and my pants leg is crusted with dried blood. "Yeah, it's bad." I say, starting to unbuckle the straps holding me into the Pilot's seat. "I'm more worried about Sarah right now. There are medics on their way," I tell her, getting the last strap undone and falling to the floor. I can't risk putting any weight on my leg. "Ariel, can you open up the first aid kit?" I ask, pointing to a wardrobe in the wall. There's a set of crutches inside, which she hands to me. This is gonna hurt…

Ariel pulls up the leg of my pants as carefully as possible, but it's hard when it's almost solid with caked blood. Her face pales when she sees the cut, a large deep wound, almost to the bone.

"Don't you dare puke on me," I say, gritting my teeth in pain. "Just get it over with, I'll be back in a moment," I tell her, going into AFK while she bandages my leg. The AFK doesn't completely get rid of the pain, but it makes it far more bearable. My AI intercepts the electrical pulses coming from my nerves and deadens them somehow. I don't plan to figure out how.

"Vex, it's done," Ariel's voice calls, heavily muffled by the AFK. I surge back into proper consciousness, gasping when I can feel my leg again.

"Ouch," I rasp, getting up. The medics have already taken Sarah away on a stretcher, rushing her to intensive care. "So, we're finally safe." I say, leading the way out to the Panacea's hallways.

"There were a lot of injuries before you organised everyone to get into the ACUs," Ariel tells me, following as I make my way towards the mess halls.

"I know. I'm going to make sure everyone with an injury, whether Cybran or not, gets treatment. The one thing we can't offer, though, is therapy for those who lost friends and family." It's kind of annoying. We Cybrans, who can literally know exactly how a person feels, can't offer therapy to someone we can't connect with. "The only way we could offer that would be to give them implants so that we can connect, but I don't think that'd help our cause."

Ariel nods mutely. She's a little busy looking around the huge place. The Panacea is one of the first Cybran vessels designed with impressing people in mind, and boy does it work. It's that big that it takes _six _Paragons to keep it stable, and can act as a fully self-sustained planetoid sized colony. Far in the distance was the giant central cavern, where all the "natural" lands are, larger than the city and surrounding plains we'd just left. It was over twenty kilometres wide at the smallest points, and from here we could barely make out where it ended, if it did. About two kilometres of assorted rooms for residence, work, and play lay between us and the landmass, forming a huge bustling metropolis on the edge of the wilderness.

The walls lining the sides curved up into the reactive armour plating of the roof, which was currently displaying a night sky, contrasting a deep bluish shade with the soft red glow of the Cybran electronics that covered most surfaces.

"This place is _huge_!" Ariel says, her jaw dropped in wonder. "How did you guys manage to keep this a secret?"

I grin, despite everything. "The trick was that it wasn't a secret. Dr. Brackman has actually been showing it off a lot, calling it the next step in space exploration. Of course, he didn't have all the military hardware on it at the time," I winked, and Ariel's eyes went even wider. Sheesh, they're gonna pop out of her head soon.

"Uhh…" she grunts, speechless.

"This way," I tell her, nodding towards one of the halls leading out from the walkways along the massive cavern. Soon, we're enclosed in a tube of blackened metal and glowing red lights that line the ship like wires in a server farm.

"How big _is _this thing?" Ariel asks as we enter the main mess hall, which is big enough to hold almost all of the refugees from the Academy and the city. I know that all the teachers, ACU Pilots, and the staff from the Academy would be in a separate mess hall for the VIPs. All the ACU owners would be in there too.

"Well, let's just say that if I wanted to ram the moon into the Earth with it, I could." I say with a chuckle. The Panacea is truly one of the largest feats of space-engineering ever attempted, and the area we'd seen was just a fraction of its true size. "Heck, I could probably replace the moon with it."

Everyone in this mess hall wouldn't be a leader, or anybody who would actively make decisions for the rest of them, so I climbed up to the stage with Ariel, skirting around the crowd. Everyone cheered when I made it up there, so loudly that they must have woken up the dead from the next system over!

"Hey, everyone, nice to see you guys alive and well," I greet them, getting more applause. "Look, I'm sorry for those who didn't make it, and we can honour them later, but right now we've got some other important things to do first. Don't worry, they _will_ be remembered, and they _will_ be avenged!" I shout, earning more cheers of encouragement and praise. "First though, we need to get you lot settled in. We may need to shuffle some people around, but I'm planning to get all evacuees residence in the same basic area, so we can continue studies from the Academy and get our community back on it's feet, even if it's wearing different shoes," I joke, most of the crowd chuckling quietly. "For now though, dinner!" I shout, and people suddenly realise that some of my Cybran brothers and sisters have been moving plates of delicious food onto the tables and around the hall while I've had them captivated. "Enjoy some good food, and get some rest. After what happened today, you all deserve it," I finish, bowing as much as I can in crutches. Everyone is silent for a moment, and Ariel starts clapping behind me. It only takes a moment, but soon everyone is clapping, including the Cybrans who already live on the Panacea.

"Are you one of the higher-ups in the Cybran Nation?" Ariel asks me as we leave. My stomach growls at the thought of a hot meal, but I know we just have to get to the officers mess hall first. It's where all the important staff go for gatherings.

"Actually, not really." I tell her, shrugging a little. "I'm Dr. Brackman's biological son though, so I carry a lot of influence off the field. Just don't ask me to be a diplomat. As you just saw, I'm much better at telling people where to go and what to do and leaving them to sort themselves out from there," I say, putting my palm on the scanner and pushing in a few keys before standing aside. "Can you put your hand on the scanner please?" I ask Ariel, who quickly complies. I press another button and it scans her palm-prints into the locking system. "You now have access to the officers' mess, and can come in here at any time," I tell her, smiling tiredly.

"Cool!" she grins, pulling her hand off the scanner and putting it back on again. The big double doors open up, and she removes her hand. After waiting for the doors to close, but not getting the result she wants, Ariel puts her hand on the scanner again. It doesn't scan, and the doors stay open. She looks at me, annoyed. "Aren't they supposed to shut automatically?"

"Smart systems; it won't close until you've gone through. The system's going to recognise you as mischievous now," I say, suppressing a laugh. "Come on, I bet you're starving."

We walk- no, I limp- in and find ourselves a seat at the back of the hall, just listening to the last of Brackman's speech. He's been telling everyone about the fact that the Panacea isn't something they should try mess around with. He expects everyone's full cooperation when there's an emergency, and makes sure they all know that none of the Cybrans living on the Panacea want any trouble. Until I'd brought the population of the multi-faction city here, it had been a purely Cybran environment.

He told them about the one thing the Cybran Nation had hoped to achieve with Panacea, which was Cybran Isolationism. "The Cybran Nation does not wish to be involved with the politics of others; it simply wishes to be left alone." And, as such, the Cybrans wouldn't go out of their way to interact with the newcomers, but as individuals, they wouldn't go out of their way to avoid them, either.

It was all very complex, and it took a while for all the ground rules to be set, but dinner was finally served and I got to have a chat with friends and family.

"So, my boy," Dr. Brackman says, his holographic self appearing on the seat next to me. Ariel's on my other side, Rick's sitting opposite, and Seth-Vadam is on his right. "How have your studies been going?" he asks, causing me to choke a little on my food.

When I finally get enough breath to reply, I say, "Dad! All things considered, _that's _what you ask me?!"

Dr. Brackman nods, as though there's nothing odd about it. I groan.

"Fine. I've been excelling in Tech, made a few upgrades to my ACU, figured out what the hell is wrong with Quantum Inversion Stealth Generators, and saved roughly three quarters of the school from total annihilation." I say, shaking my head in wonder. Back during the Infinite War, the UEF had their own nickname for my dad; That Crazy Old Bastard. Sometimes I truly wonder if he hasn't gone insane. After all, he is the only living person who survived, and in some views started, the entire Infinite War.

"That is very good. Oh yes, very good. Who are your friends?" he asks, gesturing to Rick and Seth, still looking at me keenly.

"Oh my god, you can be seriously embarrassing sometimes," I mumble into my hands, hiding my face as my "friends" find my discomfort highly amusing. "I'll tell you later,"

Dr. Brackman nods, and his hologram gets up and leaves us. I know I was probably a little harsh on him, but _jeez_.

"Your dad's cool, even if he is just a brain in a jar," Ariel says, putting a hand on my arm.

"Don't forget the spinal cord," I laugh. "I'd say dad has some serious guts, letting everyone on the ship, but he doesn't actually have any,"

Rick points at me with his fork, taking a breather from his gigantic steak. "So you're the heir to the Cybran Nation, and I've been mocking you all this time? I feel like a traitor," he says, still chewing. We're all hungry, so nobody can really be bothered complaining.

"Hey, I'm not actually the heir. That would be Sarah," I wink. "You saw me out on the field. I'm not a politician, not by a long shot,"

"True. So if I marry Sarah, does that mean some stupidly small chance of possibly becoming King of the Cybrans?" he asks, twiddling the fork around as he speaks.

"Not really. You'd be known as the royal consort, possibly, but honestly, Sarah's just next in line to take over once dad's incapable. It takes a special sort of mind to keep a whole Nation on its feet while juggling factionist world leaders, traitorous nodes, and all that sort of thing. If Sarah didn't have the mind, then someone who does would be picked." I tell him, enjoying my own food. "Sarah just gets picked first because she's the child of the two most brilliant minds the Cybrans have ever had; Ivanna Dostya and Gustaf Brackman."

'Vadam is intrigued by this, pausing another roast chicken massacre (a clean one this time) to ask me something. "But… Brackman's a brain in a jar. This is probably going to make me sound stupid, but how did he get her… you know?" he asks quietly, leaning closer and half shrugging, trying to hint at the word _pregnant _without actually saying it.

"Exo-womb. We're both test-tube babies," I shrug. "If it's any consolation, I did accidentally walk in on them one time when they were both plugged in to one of the VRs. The phrase "Oh yes," haunted me for years," I say, shuddering at the memory.

Rick bursts out laughing for a moment before what I say sinks in. Then the horror dawns. "I… don't know what to think of that…"

"Best not to think of it at all. Forget I asked," 'Vadam says, squirming in his seat. Ariel, slightly oblivious to what the rest of us are talking about, opens her mouth to ask a question. I quickly drop a cherry tomato in there before she says something the rest of us will regret.

"Ariel, don't ask. Seth did that and he regrets it already," I tell her, trying to prevent traumatisation. Hang on… wait, never mind.

"Fine," she huffs, chewing on the tomato. "So what's going to happen to the school? We're all homeless-"

"I'll sort that out soon,"

"With no possessions, no idea of who's dead and who's still alive, no teaching facilities-"

"I was going to sort that out after the residence issue,"

"And last but not least," Ariel continues, glaring at me, "Some people are going to demand to be let off and will probably use this as an excuse to start another war. I know you've treated us as well as possible, but the way you handled disobedience in the field… well, some of the higher-ups in the UEF won't appreciate that,"

I lean back, crossing my legs under the table. Actually, that hurts. "Yeah. Dad's made sure to let everyone know that if anybody starts trying to cause trouble, he's going to shove them out the airlocks and they can fend for themselves. He's also claiming temporary ownership of all ACUs until everything is sorted out, which might not help our cause. But hey, we were never expecting visitors."

Seth finishes off his third whole-roast chicken, and looks around for more. "You guys are surprisingly good chefs," he says, eagerly licking up the last traces of flavour from his plate.

"We've had years and billions of simulations to get it right," I nod. "Our VRs are beyond anything the UEF and Aeon can do. You have to be a Cybran to get the most out of it, or be in some big-ass brain scanner, but I describe it most accurately as "Stepping into an alternate reality or parallel universe". It really is quite amazing."

"Vex, do you know how long we'll be staying here on the Panacea?" Rick asks me, having finished his meal.

"I have no idea. I can try to set up some long-term arrangements, but only if a short-term thing can be done without trouble, and it'll take some time and the cooperation of everyone. We can actually start up the Academy again, if you know what I mean," I reply, gesturing widely in front of me. "I suppose it really depends on how long people are willing to stay."

"I'm willing to live here," Ariel says, a defiant look in her eye. I smile and stroke her hair. She's a good person.

"I don't think there's actually that many of us who actually have somewhere to go," 'Vadam says, looking around. "I mean, a few Aeon may be annoyed at lack of temples for The Way and stuff, but it's better than slavery by the UEF." He shrugs. Rick, a UEF himself, isn't bothered by Seth branding the UEF as enslavers.

"I've always got a home on Earth waiting for me," Rick says. "But frankly, I'd rather be with my friends. My parents would highly disapprove you guys, so I'm sticking around."

I suddenly have an idea. I use my HUD and order a round of lemonade for us. When they arrive, I grab one and hold it up.

"To rebels with a decent cause!" I toast. The others grin and hold up their glasses.

"To a decent cause!" they chorus, everyone clinking glasses with one another.

"Amen," I finish, drinking.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

**I would like to thank the guest reviewer "WOW" for encouraging me to upload this. Without you, this chapter may have never made it onto the net. :)**

**~Pyro**

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Fifth Memory File V-5_

-.-.-.-

It's been a long day, but it doesn't stop now. I've got far too much to do and so little time to do it. Well, I could do it all extremely fast, but that could lead to overheating my brain and killing me, which I would prefer not to happen.

After dinner, all the evacuees just sort of milled about and idled in the mess halls while waiting for some idea of where they should go and what they should do. Personally, I knew where I needed to go. After excusing myself, I made my way slowly through the halls and tunnels of the Panacea, trudging along with the crutches.

"Vex!" Ariel calls from the hall behind me, jogging to catch up. "Where are you going?" she asks, obviously intent on following me wherever I go.

"First off, I've got to get to my room." I tell her, "From there I can sort out this mess and get everything in order. Unfortunately, my leg's going to have to wait for treatment," I cringe as I accidentally stand with it.

"What's in your room?"

Oh, there's probably a lot of incriminating things in there, but I don't want to tell her that. "There's my Station," I answer. "Before you ask, it's like a personal computer sort of thing, but a bit more advanced. Actually, a lot more advanced. You'll just have to see it," I shrug, limping onwards.

The tunnels truly seem to go on forever, but I know they stop about eighty kilometres from the centre of the ship. The Panacea is about a hundred and fifty kilometres wide near the middle, maybe four hundred long-ways, and it actually has a pretty cool design as well. I don't know why the ship needed to be _that _big, but to be honest; I've always had the kind of mind that says "Why make it that big?" and responds with "You idiot, why not?"

Cybrans can easily live their whole lives without even needing to visit another section of the ship, but since I'm "special" I have to move around it quite a bit. Fortunately, to prevent the issues of getting to places so far away, we got a shuttle system. It's a lot like a train system, only on a slightly more 3D, fast, and epic scale. If the front of the ship was north, then my place would be in the west pod. The ACU Garage was near the rear of the Panacea, south of the central caverns and the mess halls. The mess halls were only there because that's were a lot of the military personnel were. Most other housing came with kitchens.

As we get to one of the more open areas of the ship leading away to one of the massive side-pods, Ariel gasps. Above us there are some large exotic birds flying around between the supports, finding things to collect and put into their nests on a nearby cliff. As much as the Panacea was a technological marvel, it was made even more so by the fact that we could support entire ecosystems without any kind of interference from us directly. Even better was the fact we could still operate our daily lives here even with the wildlife and landmasses.

"Here," I say, hailing a private shuttle to come pick us up as we get to one of the many shuttle docks. In reality, the shuttles can pick up anyone from anywhere, but with the docks it's at least a bit easier to avoid accidental injuries from flying tank like things.

"This is _so _cool!" Ariel says, grinning madly. "I want to see all of it!" she says, spinning around as a bird lands behind her and inspects her. The large bird, with a dark blue body and lots of bright colours trimming its wings and tail, walks up close to Ariel, its head tilting to each side as it investigates. It's almost a tall as she is. Just as Ariel reaches a hand up to pet it, it squawks loudly and flies off, startling her.

"Yeah, those things can be annoying," I tell her as the shuttle arrives. It's the size of a large van, and hovers over the dock floor. The large door slides open, and we're greeted by a large interior with a TV on the front wall, and a large U shaped couch at the back with a table in the middle. I hit the couch, thankful for a chance to get off my feet. Ariel plops down on the other side, and then gets up and looks around, sits down, and then gets up again to look out the windows as the shuttle rises to connect to the mag-rails.

"This place is amazing!" Ariel says, again.

"As you keep saying," I nod, sitting up to look at the scenery whizzing along below us. "I know it's a lot to take in-"

"Bloody hell, this thing is big," Ariel mutters, shaking her head. We've just left one of the tunnels connecting the main ship to the west pod, and she can't even see the end of it.

"Yep," I sigh. In one ear and out the other. "We've got about five minutes till we get to my place," I tell her, connecting to the ship via my HUD to check up on my mail and messages while we wait.

Normal people get emails, and they just see them as lines of text, or a video. Cybrans can experience it fully, getting the emotions and feelings, sounds, sights, smells- so much more! It's like normal people get a message that says "LOL" while Cybrans get a message that contains the laugh of the person who sent it, and you feel happy too.

Let's see… two thousand messages from Jack, all of which are asking me what the answer to "how to keep an idiot in suspense" was. Almost fourteen messages a day; give or take a few.

After deleting the spam and replying to them with "Well it worked, didn't it?" I check the rest. A few notices from random people, which I have no idea about. Wait, it's just spam. I've missed maybe twenty of my Tech-Wars meetings, and a couple of tournaments, but they've supplied me with everyone's points of view so I can review it later. There are a few notifications on my forum alerts, and a bunch of other stuff on the normal Internet and StellarNet, the ones where Cybrans can't interact fully with the content.

"This is your place?" Ariel asks, pulling me out of my Cyberspace Habitat. I look outside, checking the area.

"Yeah, that one over there," I point to a chunk of building, covered by the black armoured plating that seems to cover everything the Cybrans use. As the shuttle docks, I get up and move next to the door.

"Not as big as I thought it would be," Ariel says, tilting her head and looking up at me.

"The Panacea may be huge, but we're still human. We'd have trouble if our living spaces were the size of towns. Anyways though, home sweet home," we walk out onto the platform. Since it's late, or what could be considered late, we don't see that many people as we walk along the last bit of the trip. On a random impulse, I check my HUD for distance to my ACU. "Hey Ariel, we're about sixty four kilometres from the ACU Garage," I tell her, unlocking the front door to my home.

Once again, her eyes grow wide. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," I nod, walking inside. The lights respond automatically, casting the familiar yellow glow of artificial lighting through the lounge, halls, bedrooms, and more. I've got a nice home theatre system with a gigantic screen taking up most of the wall in the main lounge area, with an awesome giant couch opposite, encompassed by the horseshoe arranged stairs leading down to the lounge from the kitchen and dining area.

It's my grand show-off room, where I hold all my usual gaming, TV and movie marathons. I love it. Above it is the dining area, the front door, and then the kitchen, with hallways leading to the bedrooms, workshops, and my Station.

"This is a step up from what we got at the Academy," Ariel says, looking around in wonder. I get the impression she's never seen a Cybran's home in the way a Cybran would want it.

"This is my masterpiece," I agree, using my HUD to order a chocolate smoothie from the fridge.

Mass manipulation, you are my hero.

"Can I stay here with you?" Ariel asks, flicking through my DVD collection. Everything good is always digitally stored, but I put a copy of each thing onto disk so it's easier to see what's available for viewing.

"Sure. Down the hall, first left is the guest bedroom, Sarah's is next to it, mine's opposite hers. Each room comes with its own bathroom." I tell her, putting the smoothie on the bench and going down the hall. I push open the guest bedroom's door, and let Ariel through. "I'll let you get settled in,"

"Thanks," she says, smiling tiredly. She's got her own huge bed, which she immediately jumps on. I think she's already asleep.

Opposite her room are more halls, which lead to mine and Sarah's Stations, and my various workshops. At the end of the hallway, I go down the stairs to the bottom floor, where there's a huge garage for my Tech-Wars projects, such as a gunship or tank. Before I left to go to the Academy, I'd been working on an amphibious naval warship, much like an advanced version of the Salem. The Garage was big enough to hold an ACU, but I had to make my creations on a slightly smaller scale than the machines currently used in war. Otherwise they wouldn't fit.

After refreshing my memory on the projects, I go back upstairs. Ariel is sound asleep on her bed, spread out like a starfish. I grab one of the light blankets and lay it over her, before leaving and shutting the door behind me.

The other evacuees would probably still be hanging around in the mess halls, but I'm going to have to hurry up and get them somewhere to stay for the night.

My Station is a room with a curved wall of screens and monitors facing a full body cradle. The cradle is fitted perfectly for my body, and when I'm sitting in it, it arguments my processing capabilities, and allows me to set up my thoughts on the various screens. It's designed to keep the user in the system and keep real world distractions out of the way so we can concentrate on what we're doing. It's our own personal VR systems, too.

I carefully manoeuvre myself in without putting any pressure on my leg, and immerse myself into Cyberspace.

First: check on Sarah. Her status is in a critical but stable state, and she's currently offloading the event into an extremely large external hard drive. Her case is so much more severe because the feedback loops are corrupt, and are continuously creating more corrupt feedback loops with each cycle. Most Overload cases get like that after a while, but usually not at the rate Sarah's suffering with. The medics need to offload the event into multiple drives at the same time to ensure that they can keep up with the rate new loops are written.

Second: find refuge for the evacuees. Dr. Brackman has already organised a nearby residential district to be relocated so that a new one can be built for the evacuees to live in, but that's only going to be an overnight solution. I check the area here in the west pod to see if there's any of the local landmass available for urbanisation. There's a large enough area- heck; I doubt we'd ever be able to use all the space on the Panacea. There's more than enough room for a new Academy and a replacement city, but with a slight twist: no UEF overlords haunting our every move. Just to be extra careful though, I check what the records have in the way of data on Aeon Temples, and put in a couple of them in the plans.

The Cybran citizens/students would probably love a new Tech-Wars arena, even more so with Aeon and UEF opponents. After a while, having the same opponents over and over again, you get a feel for what they'll build, and so on and so forth. Point is; we needed some new competition to keep things going. So I include a new stadium in the wireframe construct. Now, what else might we need?

An Academy, duh. I think about how to go about it. Should I make the whole thing the Academy, or would it actually need a city for the rest of the evacuees? Hmm… I decide to make the Academy a lot larger, with each section dedicated to a certain subject, and spread it out so it isn't just one large tall building, but almost a city in itself… but with a city next to it. I'm forced to use the UEF standard of building style, as Cybran or Aeon civilian structures just aren't the same.

The last thing I include is a large track for Hover-Racing. Since the Aeon were willing to share their superior hover technology with the other factions in the name of entertainment that would be untainted by outside conflict, and the Cybrans were wiling to share their superior remote-control technology, the Races were born. Each team creates their own vehicle, and creates a Nanolathe pattern for it, which is where the best part of the Races comes from: combat. With the remote piloting stations provided by the Cybrans, teams never needed to worry about losing a driver as they were never even in the vehicle.

It's pretty much high-speed, high-octane Tech-Wars. It's one of the most popular sporting events on inter-system television broadcasts, beaten only by the adult channels.

Since there's so much space available, I put in an extra large track that would wind through the un-inhabited areas on the huge landmass below the suspended city I live in. The one problem we get from the Races is large amounts of flaming wreckage from destroyed vehicles.

Once I've got the whole thing finished and ready, finalised beyond further possible refinement from me, I send a copy to dad, and a few of the Cybran students studying architecture that I know. If I'm lucky, we can get the design refined and perfected even more, and get it built overnight. But, since I can't add anything more to the design, I store it in one of my home drives (which aren't in my head), and leave the system.

My leg hurts worse than ever, so I leave Ariel a note on the kitchen bench and put the smoothie in the fridge for her before making my way down to the hospital.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Sixth Memory File V-6_

-.-.-.-

I've been thinking. After the operation on my leg, I found out that the doctor had never seen circuitry as complex as mine in a Cybran. The reason I'd needed an operation was to hook all the electronics back together and to, you know, stitch up what was left of my leg to heal. When I shared the experience of getting the electronics cut off with the doctor, he told me again that he'd never seen, heard of, or ever felt anything like it.

When I check my Core Memory, I find that since I got my implants, since I became a true Cybran at the age of 2 days, 4 hours, 32 minutes and 28 seconds, I have never stopped thinking. I have never been truly unconscious, never truly asleep, never truly… stopped. I have been conscious for 18 years, 9 months, 27 days, 23 hours, 8 minutes, and 42 seconds.

It's a bit shocking, but not in a… shocking way. More like I subconsciously suspected it, or something.

I'm an Experimental Cybran.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Seventh Memory File V-7_

-.-.-.-

I didn't sleep. I didn't know how. I've never known how.

My body rested, but my mind has never rested, never even considered pausing. I'll have to ask Sarah about how she goes to sleep. How does she… turn off? I just can't get my head around it. Sarah became a Cybran at the age of 3 days, blah blah blah: almost the same age I was, and yet, we're so different.

We have the same parents, the late Elite Commander Ivanna Dostya, and Dr. Gustaf Brackman, who is currently a brain in jar and over a thousand years old. Also he's a bit creepy at times. But I can't think of anything that might make us different.

As I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, I wonder.

Am I… human? Or am I machine?

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Eighth Memory File V-8_

-.-.-.-

Despite the superior cognitive capability of the Cybrans, there are always a few things that can get us. Overload, for example, is one of the more lethal ones. Other issues we get are Rampancy, which is literally thinking ourselves to death, and the final one was Heatsink. I don't know what sick bastard came up with the name, but when electronics are used, they heat up, and the cybernetic implants we get just turn our brain into one much larger and much faster computer, which just makes itself vulnerable to overheating. The brain is a sensitive organ, and Cybrans tend to think a lot, so I'm sure you can appreciate the danger there.

In your head, there's no way to get a heatsink, a device for keeping the systems cool. Because of this, most Cybran environments tend to be kept cool through air-conditioning, and a lot of icy treats, such as cold smoothies, ice-cream, etc, etc… one of the annoying things about the human body is that the head is where a lot of our body releases heat, and so it's hot all the time naturally anyway. We try to solve this using clothes lined with special tech designed to keep the body cold. So when we put on a few more layers, we aren't trying to warm up.

It's a real pity that Sarah's managed to grab the most lethal one.

"Good morning," I yawn, limping slightly as I walk out into the dining room. Ariel's sitting at the table and watching the front door intently, like a cat preparing to pounce on a bird.

"Morning," she says, not moving.

"That door must be very interesting," I say, sitting down on the seat next to her.

"I found the phonebook." She responds, confusing me.

"Phonebook?"

"Contacts list then," she revises, putting a glass tablet computer on the table. I pick it up and have a look without connecting, just to see what its like, to see if I feel more human.

The call history tells me she's contacted Dr. Brackman twice, then the hospital- I must have forgotten to pick up my note- and then more recently, one of the restaurants in the area.

"Did you order breakfast?" I ask, impressed.

"Actually I sorta messed up the order and Dr. Brackman said he'd sort it out for me." She says, still staring at the door. "I don't know if they're delivering or what,"

"Ah, that's Mari's place. Her mum's a fantastic chef," I say, smiling.

"Who's _Mari_?" Ariel asks, grinning like Mari might be my "special someone".

"Sorry to disappoint, but she's in my Tech-Wars team. Not a girlfriend," I smirk. Ariel seems to be thoroughly disappointed at this, and starts to sulk. "She's cool though, you'd like her."

"Really?" Ariel asks, intrigued.

"Yeah!" I say, laughing. "You two are trouble-makers, diabolical pyros, and explosive-loving adrenaline-junkies. If you two can't get along, then the Seraphim were never meant to have Experimental Nukes. Which doesn't make any sense, but you two should be fine," I tell her, grinning. She perks up a bit when the doorbell rings.

I use my HUD to open up the automatic door, and standing outside is Mari, with an extra tall pizza-box in her hands. "Hey Vex, long time no see!" she says with a light Jamaican accent, smiling her huge smile; the one that doesn't signal trouble brewing.

"It's good to be back," I nod. "Come on in," I say, beckoning her.

"And who's this?" she asks, smiling at Ariel as she sets down the box.

"This," I say, wrapping an arm around Ariel, "is Ariel. You'll love her; she's just a diabolical as you are,"

"Hi!" Ariel says, untangling herself from me. "What's your favourite way to make a ghetto kamikaze bomber?" she asks, her eyes all open and innocent.

"Hmm…" Mari put a finger on her chin as she looks up, thinking. "Probably a CZAR loaded with Continental Transports that are fully loaded with Fire Beetles."

Ariel stares at Mari, shocked.

"That is freaking _brilliant_!" she shrieks, turning around to look at me. "Can we do it? Pleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease-"

"Maybe later," I say, chuckling. "That kind of bomber would rival a Nuke,"

"Actually, I've crunched the numbers, and it would be three times stronger than a _Yolona Oss_, but it would take far longer to create and be heaps more expensive." Mari tells us, opening up the box. "When mum heard Vex was back, she decided to do a special breakfast for my "returning boyfriend". She's never going to get it, you know,"

I grimace. "Yeah, I know."

This sets Ariel off on a laughing fit. "You said she's not gonna be your girlfriend! Then why is it that everyone else is convinced?!"

"If they're that intent on calling us a couple, I say it's a work relationship." Mari says, smiling slightly.

"So, Ariel, have you set your sights on any boy in particular yet?" I ask, wondering what kind of response I'd get.

"Well, you're kinda cute," she says, tilting her head and swinging from side to side adorably.

"Oh no way, sistah, he's mine!" Mari says, shaking her head and putting a hand on her hip.

I groan and smash my head into the table.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Ninth Memory File V-9_

-.-.-.-

After a great breakfast of pancakes, terrible jokes, Ariel and Mari getting to know each other and getting us filled in on the events that have gone on both on the Panacea and off; we headed down to the Workshop.

"So, this time our design specifications is "Must be able to fly", and will feature in both Air-to-Air fighting, as well as Air-to-Ground fighting. Fighter/Bomber?" I ask, flicking through some of my previous un-refined designs on the glass lectern-type thingy that we're all crowded around. I'm usually the concept artist for the team.

"Pretty much. Unless you've got a better idea?" Mari says, looking at me strangely.

"What?" I ask, cringing back slightly.

"You aren't open for connection. Usually you're always online, but now… something's different." She tells me.

"You've always seemed to know me better than anyone else-" I start, but a certain little Aeon has other ideas.

"Just _soooo _perfect for each other," Ariel coos quietly, hiding her devilish grin when I glare at her.

"Anyway," I say loudly, "I've just found out a few disturbing things and I don't really feel like being on the network right now," I tell her, trying to focus on planning something, but nothing comes to mind.

"Direct then. I want to know what's going on." Mari says, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I sigh, and open up for direct connection, bypassing CyNet. Then close quickly. "We've got a lot of catching up to do, so we might as well sit down," I say, falling into one of the armchairs around the Workshop entrance. Mari does the same, still looking at me intently.

Ariel smiles deviously, and walks deeper into the Workshop, dodging her way though piles of parts and random chunks of wreckage.

"Ariel, please don't mess with anything. I don't want to have to visit the hospital again so soon," I call, propping up on the armrests and holding my head.

Mari suddenly looks a little shocked, but I just mouth the word connect to her, and she sits back down and nods.

Each time you connect with someone is unique, like when I connected with Sarah, it was just reassuring each other that we were still the same person. When I connected with Mari this time, it was telling her why I suddenly felt like a different person.

I sent over some memories, specifically the events of yesterday and the night after, while I receive Mari's point of view from when there was suddenly news of the Infinite War possibly starting again.

_So there really isn't anything dangerous here, is there?_ I hear Mari think.

_No, I just wanted to make sure she didn't start messing around with things. Review this memory log, and you'll see what I mean. _I transmit the thought to her, along with flagging the battle I had in the VR yesterday.

_Mekago bazor?_

_It's Seraphim. _

Over the next half an hour, we talk, think, and try to figure it out. I still feel more like a machine than a human now, but Mari tells me I am human, nothings changed suddenly because I know I'm slightly more advanced.

_You don't get it. I've never stopped thinking, ever. _I tell her, sending over another memory log. Last nights log.

_I've never stopped thinking either. It's part of being a Cybran. The only way to turn off a computer is to cut the power, and you know damn well we don't have a simple on/off switch. _Mari thinks, bringing me small comfort. _We'll always be thinking, but whether we're actively controlling the train of thought is different. Sarah's Core Memory will say she's been thinking ever since getting her cybernetic implants-_

_She has normal dreams. _I interrupt, but Mari scolds me so I let her continue.

_Yes, but no matter how disturbing they may get, she is still thinking. OK, yeah, that dream was pretty disturbing, but she wasn't in control of her train of thoughts at the time, was she?_ Mari asks, feeling like she's solved the whole thing.

I suppose Sarah wasn't in control. Maybe it had been Rick.

_So our logs, they show we've been active, but not in the direct sense? _I ask, mulling it over.

_The brain is an extremely complicated thing. To say whether it is in control or not is near impossible. Your dad got pretty damn close, but close isn't at the finish line. _Mari thinks, sending me over a video example she's just thought up.

_Yeah, I guess so. But how do we explain the extra-complicated circuitry? _I ask, sending her the doctor's views on how he'd never seen anything like it.

_Dr. Brackman is always trying to make us more advanced with each new Cybran. Maybe, since your genetics are so close to his, he was able to go one step further. Now, how about we get on with this project?_

"Yeah, we should get on with it. How long have we got?" I ask, disconnecting. It leaves me feeling lonely, but disconnecting is always like that. One moment, you have someone you can happily share everything with, and the next moment, your head is just your own.

Mari's always been a little sensitive to disconnecting, and her eyes well up for a moment before she blinks it away. "We've got one week before a Panacea-wide tournament going on in the central cavern. We're behind by a few days, but the organisers have been pushing the deadline ahead now there's a chance of new teams from the other factions. You've got us into a spot of trouble," she tells me, winking.

"Are Tesla and Rewind still on the team?" I ask, getting up and forming some new plans in my head.

Mari sighs dramatically. "Yes, Trent and Caleb are still on the team. Trent hasn't played with a Tesla Coil for two weeks now." She says, organising the folders and files I've left scattered throughout the design studio. We've got our design stations, separate desks with a bunch of screens in front of them, and then a main wall of screens where we can put up our final designs.

"Great. Call them over and I'll sort out this mess," I tell her as I use my HUD to set up the magnetic-lifts to start clearing a space. "Ariel, where are you?" I yell, stopping the mags in case she's caught up in something.

"Over here," Ariel calls from somewhere to my left. "What's up?" she asks, jogging over to me.

"We're starting up a new project. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't about to shove you into storage," I say, powering up the mag system. Giant blast doors close off the inner Garage where all the various parts and discarded metals lay, and then it detaches from the rest of the house. The Garage moves slowly along the mag trail as a new, fresh Garage comes in to replace it.

"Wow…" Ariel whispers, watching the blast doors go up to reveal a sparkling new area exactly like the one she'd been playing around in earlier.

This new Garage was completely empty aside from a large Proto-Crafter built into the back wall, and a few rails along the roof, side, and front wall for smaller Proto-Crafters, used for building the more complicated and detailed parts of whatever we were building.

"C'mon, we're gonna design a brand new airship." I grin, beckoning Ariel to the design stations. Mari is already there and working on the design specs to make sure it's within the games parameters. "Tech 2 unit," I read, scrapping some of my larger, Experimental sized plans.

"Yep. I've notified Trent and Caleb that Team Nova is back online, and we've got some work to do if we want to beat up Team Apollo and Team Kiloton anytime soon."

"Who's Team Nova?" Ariel asks me, confused.

"That's us. So, Mari, should we go for lasers, missiles, energy, or conventional weapons?" I ask, sitting down at my design station.

Lasers have a high damage output, and get to the target instantly, but they have huge power costs, and a high tendency to miss when trying to keep them trained on fast-moving targets. There's also the slight issue that if the target has a refractive coating on their armour, the laser is pretty much useless.

Missiles are good because they have an extremely high damage output, depending on what you put on them, and great tracking. But they do have limited fuel and tend to have longer reload times, and are prone to anti-missile systems such as TMD or flares.

Conventional weapons, the good old bullets and cannons, have a decent damage output, but can do massive damage with kinetic energy and explosive rounds, but have absolutely no tracking and is often prone to causing friendly fire. There's no way to counter them other than shields and better armour, but it can be hard to train the gun on a moving target.

The last option is energy based weapons, like lasers, but not quite. Things like electron bolters, and other energy based weapons generally have good accuracy and tracking, as well as fast reload times, but they don't tend to do too much damage. Well, it's hard to say. There are a lot of different weapons out there, so it's impractical to try and draw an average.

"Conventional maybe? We could have shotgun-style burst cannon." Mari suggests, flicking over a cannon design to one of my screens.

"There'd be little to no range, and would probably take out half your own air fleet, but as a rusher to hit Experimentals, it would be pretty good." I say, picking it apart. "We might be able to do large damage to an enemy air fleet if we could get close enough."

Mari nods, thinking. "We'd need some kind of flying shield generator though. How's about a missile system?" she asks, thinking about the Gemini Air-Superiority-Fighter's weapons.

"Those can be used effectively as an anti-ground weapon too. Missiles it is." I say, creating a new missile system from scratch. "Burst release like the Gemini or stream like SAMs?"

Ariel is pacing around the room, going from one side to the other to look at my screen and then Mari's. In the middle of the room, I've got a holographic generator hooked up to our final design screens, so we can get a 3D image of it after.

"Depends. Do we want a super fast fighter, or a slightly slower and armoured one?" Mari asks. A slower airship would be more armoured, but would be an easier target for SAMs and Flak artillery.

"Or, longer range and active stealth?" I counter, having another brilliant idea. "But, what if we attached a couple of Loyalist Missile Defence Arrays to it? Any other team using missiles would get one hell of a surprise!"

Mari stares at me, jaw hanging. "That is a bloody good idea. Add stealth and you've got a flying missile bouncer. Just imagine what would happen if someone tried to send a missile to hit your base and you've got these things patrolling! It's brilliant!" she exclaims, putting a few of the defence systems into the design.

There's a knock at the Garage door, and then a large bang.

"Trent! Lay off the firecrackers!" I yell, opening up the door. As the huge blast door leading outside opens up, I hear the small hiss of a fuse and see a small object get thrown in.

I sigh, waiting for the inevitable bang and flash. It doesn't disappoint, but it throws out far too much smoke. Trent walks in, and with his insane sense of theatrics, makes a semi-dramatic entrance through the smoke. It's made less dramatic by the way his hair stands up in fourteen different colours, and the fact that Caleb smacks the back of his head as he walks past.

"Hey, Vex, good to get the team up again?" he asks me, grinning and starting up his design station.

"I've missed you guys. At the Academy the most we were allowed to do was ACU upgrades, no new units. How've ya been?" I reply, coughing slightly. Trent's firecrackers are home-made, and tend to contain hazardous materials.

"You know, the usual; saving Trent from himself, and occasionally the police." Caleb smirks. "Who's the new girl?" he asks.

"Ariel. She's got a talent for the spectacular art of revenge and blowing shit up," I tell him, looking over to Ariel, who is looking decidedly crept out by Trent, who's staring at her, smiling.

"Wanna firecracker?" Trent asks her, holding out his hand. There's nothing in it, but he doesn't seem to notice.

"Trent, be nice, and try not to be a bad influence," I call to him. "C'mon, you're our residential nutcase, and we only need one!"

That seems to get his attention. Mari and Caleb chuckle as Trent storms over extravagantly to his design station, and sits down over dramatically. Aside from his rainbow Einstein hairdo, he's extremely tall and skinny, like a basketball-playing spider. "Where would you guys be without me?" he says, shaking his head and starting up his station. I hear a couple of clicks and snaps as a few of his hairs suddenly connect with a spark.

"Probably in comfier seats we could have bought if we hadn't had to pay bail so many times," Mari scolds him, causing us all to laugh.

"Fine, fine," he says, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat, only much more dramatically than any normal person would of. "But- whoa! Seriously, you guys are putting Loyalist bouncers on an airship? Why the hell didn't I think of that?!" he yells, grinning hugely, and it looks like he's unhinged his jaw.

"Because you were too busy humping a Zapper," Caleb retorts, giving Mari and Ariel horrible mental images while I can't stop laughing. "What kind of chassis are we gonna use? The Gemini one is downright badass, but from the looks of it, we might want to go for a slightly more bomber-style design."

"Like Spook chassis?" Mari asks. The Spook chassis is extremely fast but it has some of the lightest armour out there. While it could out-run Flak systems, any Flak clouds already in the air would pose a huge threat. SAMs would be negated by the bouncer.

"Let's start with a T2-sized Spook chassis, and go from there." I say, outlining my plan. "We can use the bouncer to negate SAMs and the speed to outrun Flak, and the missile weapon system could be converted for lightning bombing raids. If we remove computer targeting for ground assaults, we could even attack Loyalists." I suggest, pinning up an example on the holographic projector.

"See here," Trent points to some Tech 1 AA, "This could be a problem,"

"How? It's Tech 1! Those things aren't even good against T2 scouts!" Caleb exclaims, dismissing Trent's worry.

"I agree. T1 AA is near useless unless it's got a target that won't fight back and would stay still long enough to get shot at." I say, gesturing to our speedy aircraft.

"Still," Trent tries, one last time. He sees Mari take a breath to talk and just shakes his head. "Fine, this thing could outrun T1 AA. So what do we do about Air-to-Air fighting?"

Mari changes the scene to show our new unit in a fight against the standard Fighter/Bombers of all the factions. "Well, any missile use against us is negated by the bouncer, but we don't see any of that until we hit the Gemini, which is rather disappointing. Most standard air units use conventional for Air-to-Air, but we have seen a couple of laser systems out there," she says, shrugging.

"Add a refractive armour coating," I tell Caleb, who's our armour designer. Well, he knows how to put the refractive coating into the design. "We do have our missile system for dogfights, but the current design is almost as fast as a Gemini. The missiles should be burst, so we can at least get more damage done on ground assaults without tracking."

"Yeah, but with our superior speed, by the time we've finished reloading, we'll be out ahead of the enemy: open target!" Trent exclaims, bringing up the scenario onto the projector. It's in slow motion, and features an over-dramatised film of our fighter sending out a burst of missiles to an enemy fighter, and then race out ahead of it to get blown to bits by a UEF rail-gun.

"We can't keep such high speeds and have such a large amount of armour." Mari counters. "But if we can tone it right, we might be able to keep a step ahead of the others while not being a sitting duck."

Ariel looks kind of lost, and has resorted to pulling over a chair to just watch the various screens while ignoring our talks. "What if you used Seraphim alloys?" she suggests, startling the other three.

"It's an interesting concept," Trent says, more hairs crackling. He's a bit of a voltage junkie, and his cybernetic implants have been slightly damaged, causing random sparking all over his body. I really don't want to think about whether or not he likes it when his pubes start sparking.

"I dunno. That stuff is heaps stronger than what we've got, lighter too, but the mass cost of this thing would spike up if we used it, and the costs are massive enough already." I say, thinking. "But if we could get layers of it through the armour, instead of going all out, we might be able to get decent armour without showing it off. We'd still be running a high-end T2 Attack Fighter, but it would definitely last longer."

"Perfect! Now for the hardest part of all," Trent lowers the lights, dims the screens, and holds a torch under his chin, "What do we name it?" he says in his creepiest "evil" voice.

"The Headlights. We can rename every other unit the Possum." Caleb laughs. "But other than that, no idea."

"Hang on, what about if we put an EMP onto the missiles?" Mari suggests, putting the lights and screens back up so she can show us another scenario on the hologram. "One hit, and the enemy ships would fall out of the sky!"

"Do you think we're starting to get this unit into the "overpowered" zone?" Trent asks, tilting his head, causing a large amount of electricity to jump around in his hair. So he immediately starts swinging his head around.

"What have I always said?" I ask, half a grin on my face.

"_There's no kill like overkill_!" we all chorus, and end up laughing our asses off for a while.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Tenth Memory File__ V-10_

-.-.-.-

Now, the only reason we needed so much time to finalise the design was because we needed to get all the finer points of the design, right down to the reloading system, done and completed and refined to lower costs as much as possible. We weren't permitted use the current systems straight-out, although we were allowed to have them very close, and we were allowed the same software.

After the few hours the team spent talking about our latest invention, we still didn't have a name for it.

"The Rolls-Royce of the Skies?" Trent suggests, spinning around on his seat, his hair shooting sparks of electricity with every movement.

"The Enforcer?" Mari tries, shrugging. Every team has trouble naming their creations, but it can be interesting to see what gets suggested from time to time.

"The Cobra Assault Ship?" I say, twiddling around with the hologram projector to show our epic assault ship in different situations. It had an extremely high mass and energy cost, and would take ages to build without help. Once on the field, it would suffer without support, and had an average armour value, but it excelled in attacking.

"Beast Assault Craft?" Caleb says, screwing his face up in concentration.

"What about the Doom-Ship?" Ariel whispers to me, reminding me of my rush decision with the modded Fatboy.

"This is by far the hardest part of our line of work," Mari says, sighing and slouching down in her chair. "Everything else is easy. Well, maybe not easy, but certainly easier than this."

"I can't help but agree," Caleb tells her, getting up. "Well, we might as well review the last couple of tournaments to see if we can find some inspiration," he says, heading upstairs.

"Brilliant idea," I say, following him. "I've missed a few rounds anyway."

And so, that's how we ended up whittling away the rest of the day with cakes of ice-cream, giant robots smashing each other to bits, tanks blowing shit into oblivion, and spending the night watching the Races.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Twelfth Memory File S-1_

-.-.-.-

Where… where am I?

The last thing I remember… I can't remember what it was. My head hurts, like a little spider-bot got in with a kinetic wave generator and is trying to blast his way out through my forehead. But, worryingly, it feels like I have a high temperature. I'm sweating, I can barely open my eyes, and I feel like crap.

What in gods name happened to me?

"I think she's awake," someone says, close to me. "That's good, right?"

"We don't know for sure. Just because she's awake doesn't mean it's actually her that's awake. Biometric Malware is terrible stuff." Someone else says, like they're quite bored with the situation.

"I don't freaking care. What the hell happened to me?" I mumble, still trying to get my mouth to work properly. At this point, I've decided that opening my eyes is too hard.

"It sounds like her," the first person says, relieved and triumphant at the same time.

"Karl! Patient 36A has woken up!" the second person yells. I can tell from the slight echo that it's down a hall. Was he a doctor?

"Setting up preliminary scans!" Karl replies, as I feel something probing into my consciousness. It felt like I was being scanned… I really need to stop thinking the obvious. I felt it go through my memories, through me, but I couldn't access those memories. My AI had locked me out. I could barely remember who I am.

"Are you OK?" the voice asks me. I peer out from under heavy eyelids, trying to find out who was talking to me.

"I don't think so. What happened?" I ask, still woozy. I remember that face. The face like the gods themselves had carved it, sculpted it perfectly. "Rick?"

"Yeah, that's me. We-"

"Scans are finished!" Karl yelled, interrupting Rick. "She's clean! A little bit of amnesia, but that should sort it's self out in a few hours," he calls from down the hall.

"Alright then," the doctor says, nodding, "sir, I get the impression you two know each other pretty well. If there's anything you want to know or check up on, feel free to contact me," he hands Rick a data pad, a thick glass one. "But whatever you do, don't hesitate. We've had too many deaths from recurring symptoms to let you think otherwise." He says sternly, not accepting no for an answer.

"Really, I'm fine," I say quietly, turning my head. I still can't fully open my eyes- too tired.

"In that case, could you please tell me the current positions of everyone in the room?" the doctor says, not unkindly, but…

"You're wandering around me, Karl's down the hall, and…" I drift off. Where was Rick?

"I thought so. Young lady, you just woke up from an Overload coma. Your body is still in shock from the whole experience, and it will likely stay that way for a while longer. I can let you leave, but you are to go _nowhere _without someone who knows to contact me in the case of an emergency."

I begin to protest that I might like some privacy in the bathroom, but he just shakes his head.

"But only in appropriate situations." He amends. "Now go on, I know you're _dying_ to leave,"

I nod mutely, swinging my legs over the bed and getting up. "Rick, do you know where to go?" I ask him, slightly dizzy.

"Uhh… no."

The doctor sighs, and I hear him take back the data pad. "Look here. Go thataway, and then thataway, two rights, a left, and you'll be back in the officer's mess. Contact Dr. Brackman. He'll know what to do."

"Thanks."

"Not a problem. If you could do me a favour, ask Karl to turn up the settings on his hearing aid on the way out, will you?"

I can barely think straight, let alone ask- wait, that's Rick's job, I'll leave him to do… uhh… everything. Now that I think about it, I'm in a lot of trouble; I don't know what the hell happened to me, how I got here, where _here _is, and… hey, what's my name?!

Before I realise that we've gone anywhere, Rick's got one arm around my shoulders and we're in the lunch hall. Lunch hall?

"Rick," I ask, extremely worried, "who am I?"

He seems taken aback by the question. "Uhh, I… uhh… where should I start?"

"I have no idea who I am, or who you are." I say, my head starting to clear. Probably not enough to stop me rushing around and doing stupid things, but at least I can think now. "Or what-" wait. _Overload_?

"Sarah!" Rick yells, catching me as my legs give out from under me. I had _Overload_?!

"Is that my name?" I whisper, struggling with the concept. I had survived Overload, but how much of me had been washed away into the streams of corrupted data?

"Sarah, what's gotten into you?" he asks, picking me up and holding me close.

"I'm not the Sarah you know. I'm not the Sarah _I _know," I say, holding back tears. "My AI locked my memory banks. I don't know if it was to protect me or what, but… sometimes I hate being a Cybran,"

"My girl, that is something I have heard many times before," an old holographic fatherly man interrupts, "but I never expected to hear it from my own daughter."

At that point I shrieked and fainted.

And yes, Rick called the doctor.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Thirteenth Memory File S-2_

-.-.-.-

Well… I don't like that guy. He creeps me out. First off, he's apparently over a thousand years old, and then he thinks he's my father?! _CREEPY!_

I hate not knowing. I hate the goddamn doctor, I hate my life. Why must Overload leave it's victims in such a situation? I hate amnesia. I hate this stupid hospital-room-thing.

When I finally wake up from fainting, I have the urge to simply sneak out of there while Rick and the doctor are talking, but the _other _doctor, Dr. Brackman, is watching me. It feels like he's watching me. So here I am, stuck in bed, arms crossed, furious, and waiting for something interesting to happen.

"Is she going to be OK?" Rick asks the doctor, again.

"No." Dr. Brackman says, startling me.

"What do you mean I'm not going to be OK?" I ask, narrowing my eyes threateningly. I don't know what I would do, probably hiff something through his face.

"You have a corrupt AI, and you don't remember _anything, _especially your father. Oh yes, I would say you are not going to be OK." He says, one hand holding the edge of his jacket/suit/thing like it's the whole "hand on heart" getup.

"You happen to be the smartest man in the galaxy, not the mention the oldest, so why don't you do something about it?" I ask, getting extremely cranky.

"I don't know your cybernetic self well enough for that," he replies, shaking his head sadly.

"Then what about Vex?" I say without thinking. "Hang on… who's Vex?" I ask, wondering how I know that name and face, but not actually _know _that name and face. I HATE AMNESIA!

Rick's started to look uncomfortable. I suppose it's because his girlfriend is acting so weird- Hey, where the hell did I pull _that_ from?

"Vex told me he's been connecting with you almost daily ever since you two started thinking ahead," Rick says, shrugging. He's got nice abs... And arms… and- oh, I see why I was in love with him now! He's got the perfect body, he's caring, and he's got that awfully nice tendency to do the right thing even though he knows he may regret it later. "I don't pretend to know what goes on between you two when that happens, but it's worth a shot, right?"

Dr. Brackman nods silently. "Oh yes. Sarah, I hope you recover quickly. The-"

"Oh, no you don't!" the doctor quickly interrupts, "She doesn't need the stress of _that _right now! Please Dr. Brackman,"

"Oh yes, no more stress." Dr. Brackman amends, finally disappearing. God knows where he went, but thankfully he isn't here anymore. Creepy holographic paedophile thinking he's my dad.

"So where is… Vex?" I ask, tapping my foot impatiently while I glare at the remaining two men. Rick's still in his sky blue armoured shirt and jeans- still? Again, I HATE AMNESIA! There's nothing I hate more than mind games right now.

_Hey AI, you up there?_

_Response Affirmative /Response_

_Great… do you mind unlocking my memories? I'm a little confused here._

_Response No /Response_

At least that's how I imagined the conversation in my head. I'd say I'm beginning to worry about myself, but that started a while ago.

If there's one thing guaranteed to make someone go crazy, it's the not knowing. Fortunately Rick seems to know about my violent tendencies when I'm unhappy, "I don't know… but-"

"I've organised a shuttle for the two of you," Dr. Brackman says from behind me. I whip around and throw a death-glare at him. I also hate being snuck up on. "Best get going. Oh yes." he says, tilting his head and smiling strangely.

Rick is forced to half-drag half-carry me away before I hurt someone or something badly. "So, Sarah… what do you remember in the last week?" he asks, trying to distract me.

"I remember a lot of explosions, and something screeching at me. Do you know what a _mekago bazor _is?" I ask, confused. I have a horrible feeling that I'm to be confused a lot for the next while or so.

"It's a Seraphim name for a ghetto kamikaze bomber," he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. "Think T3 transport loaded with Fire Beetles,"

"That would make one hell of an explosion," I say, thinking about it as we walk though the halls. "Hey, where are we? This place isn't the Academy."

"I, uhh, think we best save that for later," he says, as we reach what appears to be a sky-high walkway of some sort…

Oh.

My.

God.

This… is just indescribably huge. It's like someone ripped a chunk out of the planet and turned it into a giant building of some sort. It's… UNBELIEVABLY GOD DAMN HUGE! Whatever this is, it must have taken years to build. Scratch that: _centuries _to build it.

"You're going to start catching flies," Rick says, closing my mouth. Can't really blame me, this place is just… wow. Of course, my jaw just flops open again as soon as we get around the corner and get the full view.

"Rick, what is this place?"

"Do you remember the Panacea?" he says, and I feel a little spark in my head: as in literally. OW! "What's wrong?" Rick asks me when he sees the look of pain on my face.

"I think my AI just zapped me," I say, tilting my head and shaking it side to side. "The Panacea is the first Cybran space exploration vessel that goes almost completely against the concept of all Cybran design. It's designed to be shown off, over-sized, and if necessary, a planetary bombardment platform and/or destroyer. Equipped with enough weaponry to destroy a solar system, the Panacea can easily take on anything that anyone, including the Seraphim, could try to throw at us."

I stop walking for a moment. "Where the hell did I get _that _from?"

Rick just shakes his head in wonder. "Were you guys planning on starting another war with this thing?"

"Actually, the weaponization of it was with "oh no you didn't!" war-ending in mind." I respond automatically. I didn't want to say that… "Let's just go get me fixed," I tell Rick, hiding myself under his heavily muscled arms.

-.-.-.-

_Initiating Fourteenth Memory File V-11_

-.-.-.-

I was in bed, trying to go to sleep, properly, for the first time in years.

Of course my sister had to be the one to stop me.

"Vex!" a voice wakes me. And I'd only just managed to get into sleep… "Vex! Where the hell are you?!" the voice yells again. More like bellow.

"Rick, how the hell did you find me here?!" I yell right back, getting out of bed and stalking out the door. "Life's a bit of a hassle right- oh, hi Sarah." I spot my dreaded sister in the arms of her boyfriend, looking like she'd just been told her life has been a lie and that she was actually a poodle. I tried that on her once, so I know that look.

"Vex, I've been told you could help me," she says, confusing me. Of course I could help her. Why did she need to be told?

"What have I told you about those programs?" I say, just to mess with her. "Those TD's are not good for you!" Techno-Drugs are viral programs that stimulate the "good" centres in the brain. The only problem is that while they may seem like they have good intentions, they often try to steal your passwords for things and are generally very addicting. And that's without the problems it causes to AIs.

"Overload." she says, folding her arms and staring at me like she wanted to murder me. Meh, it's nothing new. Almost every prank I've ever pulled on her has gotten me that look.

"Ah, yes," I nod, understanding. "What's the diog code?" I ask, and they both look exceedingly confused.

"Diog code?" Rick screws his face up and scratches the back of his head. "What's that?"

I sigh and shake my head sadly. "It's what I need if I am ever forced to help a sufferer of Overload. There are about a billion or so outcomes and knowing the symptoms will only drag that down to around fifty thousand different problematic situations that might require a defined set of extremely refined help."

Rick looks even more confused. Sarah's just scowling at me even more.

"Big monkey no understand my big words?" I say, eyes wide open in mock shock. He doesn't even seem to understand _that _either. "Just gimme the damn data-pad."

Rick finally knows an instruction when he hears it, and obeys before I do something we'll both regret. "I, uhh, can definitely tell you she's got amnesia," he says, startling me. I quickly scroll through the symptoms listed on the pad in a mad rush.

Amnesia, corrupt AI, power fluctuations, a possible case of "crossed wires", and last but not least, the code. 230582. Damn.

"Sarah," I say, turning to face her, "Do you know who I am?"

"You are Vex. A rude annoying Cybran that I highly suspect of-"

"That's it?" I interrupt, grabbing her shoulder urgently. "Nothing other than I'm a bastard with the name Vex?"

"Nope." She says, quite sure of herself.

"I can't believe you forgot about your own brother!" I say, slightly disgusted.

"Fine." Sarah says, getting _so_ much closer to hitting me. "Who is my brother? I've been told by a hologram that it thinks it's my father."

"I'm your brother, jeez." I grab her and start pushing her towards the Stations. I need to get her fixed up fast. Before the AI can permanently delete her. She tried to fight me!

"Where the hell are you taking me?!" she yells, struggling. I hold her tighter and hope Rick doesn't bash me in the back of the head for it.

"Sarah, for as long as I've known you, you have hated mind-games with a passion." I tell her, dragging her more urgently. "I'm going to kill the rules and let you back into your head." What I don't tell her is that she might lose the AI in the process, which could result in her no longer being a Cybran.

It was a struggle to get her down, even with Rick's help. But when I suggest we knock her out, Rick appeared to have an internal struggle on ethics or something. Would he defend his girlfriend, or do what he knows is right to help her?

In the end, I made the decision for him. "Sorry sis," I told her, jamming a finger into a nerve cluster behind her ear before either of them could react.


End file.
